Cooking: Faux Chicken Pesto Pasta

You heard right... faux chicken.. meaning, meatless. This week Justyn and I are going to try eating all vegetarian. It's going to be a huge challenge for me especially because I need meat in my meals. It just doesn't feel like a meal without meat ya know?

For dinner tonight, we had decided on pesto pasta but I was already feeling the gnawing need for some kind of meat. We got some faux chicken which is most likely soy based. You know what? It's actually not that bad. You definitely know that it's not chicken but it's a nice substitute.

I used Wandering Chopstick's pesto recipe and added some basil to make a blended pesto. Recipe: http://wanderingchopsticks.blogspot.com/2007/09/pesto-with-arugula-and-walnuts.html

Justyn started out by making some cheesy bread with provolone, gorgonzola & parmesan.

I put some basil leaves, baby arugula, parmesan, garlic, toasted walnuts, salt & pepper into the food processor and blended it with olive oil until I was happy with the consistency.

Meanwhile some linguine pasta was boiling away.

I pan fried some of that faux chicken.

Look at the pretty pesto (I typed in presto there hah... it's such an easy recipe it is pretty much magic)

Then I mixed the pasta in with the pesto and chicken while Justyn's bread was broiling in the oven.

Here it is all together. Not bad for a vegetarian dinner and I'm definitely not missing the meat. However, this is probably not recommended for a low fat dinner heh.