Spaghetti with Roasted Tomatoes and Pea & Goats Cheese Pesto

This is a lovely fresh dish, enriched beautifully by the super delicious pesto. The recipe makes a lot of pesto, so you can put the leftovers in a jar in the fridge (with a slosh of olive oil on top to keep it fresh) and have it on toast another day. Win! You can stick to my recipe or you can mix it up a bit and try feta instead of goats cheese or broad beans instead of peas. Go nuts. Make it your own.

Try to use the best quality ingredients you can. It makes a big difference.

Takes half an hour to make : serves 4 (at least!)

What you need:

• 500g of spaghetti
• 500g of frozen peas (cooked until tender)
• 1/2 jar of goats cheese (about 160g)
• 700g of cherry tomatoes (or other small tomato variety)
• 1/4 cup of good quality extra virgin olive oil
• 1 good slosh of good quality balsamic vinegar
• a handful of fresh herbs (I used thyme, basil and parsley from my garden)
• sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper

What to do:

1. Toss the tomatoes in the olive oil, sprinkle with half the herbs and roast on a medium-high heat for about 20 minutes (until softened and colouring up a bit!)
2. Make the Pea & Goats Cheese Pesto: In a food processor, blitz the cooked peas and the goats cheese (with a few spoonfuls of the oil it comes in – or a good slosh of extra virgin olive oil) and some salt and pepper, until it makes a rustic paste.
3. Put a big pot of salted water on to boil. Cook the spaghetti in the boiling water for about 10 minutes or until al dente.
4. Take the (now ready!) tomatoes out of the oven and sprinkle with the balsamic vinegar, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
5. On a big platter, put the just cooked, drained spaghetti. Tumble the roasted tomatoes and their oil and juices on top of the pasta. Strew the herbs on top of it all. Season with salt and pepper (and a titch more olive oil) Serve the pesto in a bowl alongside so people can help themselves and be sure to have lots of bread on hand to mop up all those lovely flavours.
6. Eat. It. All. Up!

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