Cilantro Pesto on Toast [Vegan Mofo]

Day 10 of Vegan MoFo! Woohoo!

As promised, I have a theme of sorts for the next few days: green. Specifically, green veggies & herbs from my CSA this year.

Today? Cilantro pesto. I was skeptical at first when making cilantro pesto, but I had a cilantro overload this summer and had to figure out how to consume it all. It's delicious and works just as well as basil. My pesto includes walnuts (unsalted), lemon juice, garlic, olive oil, and sea salt.

I decided that instead of just pasta or vegetables, I'd try it on toast. I loved it, like an interesting garlic bread. It would have been even better on some crusty french bread, but it was a great snack all the same.

The cilantro was from the CSA. Here's a close look at the GREEN!

CSA Pesto - Pasta and Vegetables [Vegan Mofo]

Day 9 of Vegan Month of Food and I am still going strong!

I look forward to this week - I have a slew of green-themed photos for the next several days. First up: pesto. This summer I have been swimming in pesto thanks to the CSA. I even tried making cilantro pesto (fantastic).

I am not sure if this a basil or cilantro-based pesto in the photo. I usually make my pesto with whatever greens (basil, cilantro, parsley - or a combo of all three), lots of garlic, walnuts and olive oil. I also use a little lemon juice and salt to finish it off. I made most of my pesto this summer in the Magic Bullet, a device I use several times a week and sometimes several times per day. I served this pesto with penne pasta mixed with zucchini and broccoli.

The broccoli, cilantro or basil, and zucchini were all from the CSA.

Stuffed Shells

The best part about making Stuffed Manicotti is that we usually make a lot of it, so we have lots of leftovers. We had some jumbo pasta shells, so for the past couple days we have been making dishes of 2-3 shells filled with tofu pesto ricotta and covered with sauce.

Stuffed Manicotti Dinner

Mr. Coconut and I cooked a tasty Italian-style dinner for Mr. Coconut's Grandparents. We decided to make one of our favorite meals, Stuffed Manicotti, which I've blogged about before.

I made some focaccia-style bread and some bruschetta mix to go with it. We made some sauce from a combination of some canned whole peeled tomatoes, onion, garlic, olive oil, oregano, tomato paste, and basil. The star of the show, though, is the pesto tofu ricotta. A blend of basil, garlic, olive oil and walnuts for pesto; mixed with extra firm tofu. We stuffed that into cooked manicotti and then spooned sauce over the top and baked it to heat through everything.

We served the meal with a salad of greens, onions, snap peas, and pepitas (pumpkin seeds toasted and salted).

A Close-up of the meal: