Eating Seasonally April – Stuffed Green Pasta Recipe

Photo taken by Ngwafu

Seasonal cooking is a great way to eat more sustainably, as you reduce the water and land required to grow food and slash greenhouse gases used to transport produce from further afield. Put simply, seasonal produce can be grown more locally without additional resources, making it quicker and easier to get it from the ground to your kitchen.

But that’s not all. Because seasonal food doesn’t need to travel as far, it’s also fresher when you eat it. That makes it both tastier and more nutritious, so you’re getting the most out of every mouthful.

If you’re looking to eat seasonally, Hubbub has a great guide on what’s in season during each month of the year in the UK. It ranges from tomatoes, strawberries and courgettes in July to beetroot and brussels sprouts in December – maybe that’s why they always show their face at Christmas time!

To help you eat seasonally, we’ve put together a simple recipe for stuffed green pasta using some seasonal ingredients for springtime – broccoli, wild garlic and spinach.

Seasonal Stuffed Green Pasta

Serves 4

Vegan

Prep time: 15 minutes

Bake time: 25 minutes

Total time: 40 minutes

Ingredients

For roasting:

1 head of broccoli, chopped into florets then half florets

2 garlic cloves, unpeeled

100g Spinach (to be added at the end)

For your pesto:

100g Wild garlic – can be substituted with basil

30g sunflower seed

½ lemon, zested and juiced

1 tbsp olive oil

Pinch of salt

For your pasta:

250g Conchiglioni – large pasta shells

5g salt for the pasta water

Garnish

-          Olive oil

-          Salt and pepper to taste

Method

1.   Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas mark 6.

2.  In a roasting tray, coat the broccoli and unpeeled garlic with olive oil and roast for 10-12 minutes, until softened.

3.   Once roasted, place the spinach on top, cover with foil and put to one side.

4.   Fill a large pan with water, add your salt and bring to a boil. Once the water is boiled, add the pasta shells. Cook according to packet instructions and drain, then leave in the large pot to keep warm.

5.   While your pasta is cooking, take the roasted garlic from the roasting tray and squeeze it from the skin into a blender. Then add your wild garlic (or basil) with sunflower seeds, salt, lemon juice, olive oil and a splash of water. Blend to a smooth consistency, scoop out and put to one side.

6.   In a large pot, mix the pasta and pesto together until well coated.

7.   Next, mix together the pasta and roasted vegetables. Try and get some of the florets into the pasta shells in the process.

8.   Serve warm and dress with olive oil, salt and pepper to finish.

Writen by Ngwafu Tansie and George Hilton