Winter Greens Pesto Topped with Cilantro Lime Shrimp

Like many of my foodie friends, one of my guilty pleasures is Pinterest.  I could surf the site all day long looking for new food ideas. One that recently caught my eye was for winter greens pesto.  The picture of the green coated noodles just looked super yummy.  Once I explored the recipe on a web site called theKitchn and found that the green used was kale, a hard won new favorite of mine, I decided it was worth a try.

First, I guess I should explain hard won.  I know it's crazy but up until recently, I never even considered buying kale.  It just wasn't on my list of commonly used veggies.  My sister-in-law made kale chips for us once, and although they were quite tasty, I still didn't get into kale exploration.  It wasn't until I signed up for a weekly delivery of veggies from our local CSA that I got into kale.  This is surprising because our first try was rough.  I sauteed/steamed it with olive oil and garlic the way I sometimes do with spinach, and due to its strong flavor and tougher texture it was not a hit at the dinner table.  A few tries and a few varieties later I learned how to finesse kale and get my family to not only eat it, but to enjoy it.

Hence, my thrill when learning this pesto recipe was wrapped around using kale.  I immediately put it on the menu plan and even though on its own this is a great vegetarian dish, we already had several vegetarian nights planned so I decided to utilize some shrimp that I had in my freezer. 

I followed the Kitchn's recipe very closely, which is actually a bit unusual for me.  I was loosey-goosey with the measurements because I have no idea how much my batch of kale weighed, so I used the whole thing.  By the way I used lacinato kale (I've also heard it called dinosaur kale) which is a more textured variety (sort of like dinosaur skin,) than the ruffly stuff you usually see in the grocery store.

I was thrilled when I scraped it out of the food processor to find this lovely green potion for pasta.  What I liked even better was that I made it early in day, making the night's dinner preparation much easier. 

The shrimp piece was just as simple.  I peeled the already deveined shrimp and threw it in a zip lock bag with the marinade ingredients and let it sit in the refrigerator until the pasta was boiling.  A quick stir-fry and dinner was ready. 

My child who hates tomato based sauces, go figure my Italian genes must have gotten lost in her DNA, loved this dish. Plus, this recipe made a ton so I have plenty to save. Maybe I'll put some on tonight's pizza!  The rest I will freeze for another time.  We'll keep this one in the rotation.

Since I have not made any changes to the winter greens pesto recipe I am going to direct you to the original posting at theKitchn.

Winter Greens Pesto Topped with Cilantro Lime Shrimp

Winter greens pesto
1 lb Linguine
2 lbs large shrimp, peeled and deveined

Marinade:
Juice from 2 limes
2 tablespoons Cilantro, chopped
1/3 cup oil oil
2 tablespoons water
salt and pepper to taste

Make the Pesto and store it in the refrigerator until needed.

Combine the marinade ingredients.  Pour the marinade over the shrimp and refrigerate for several hours.

Boil the water for the pasta, salting generously. Meanwhile, heat a wok or large pan to stir fry the shrimp. Once the pasta is boiling, add the shrimp to the wok (discarding the excess marinade,) and quickly stir fry until the shrimp turns pink.  Drain the pasta (leaving a few tablespoons of the water) and toss in the desired amount of pesto, transfer to a serving bowl and top with the shrimp.