Pillsbury Pesto Bites

Happy Thursday, y'all! I'm not from the south, but my college roommate was, so I have adopted the use of y'all. You should give it a try.

Now that we've (finally) made it through the vegan kitchen essentials--spices, fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and protein--I would love to give you a brief background of my cooking journey.

My hope is that it will encourage you to trust the process and keep going with the new recipes, even if it's unnatural at first.

Then, hopefully my tips and inspiration will inspire you to really have fun with these Pillsbury Pesto Bites.

I was not born with a knack, nor a love for cooking. In fact, I wouldn't even say I liked cooking until my junior year of college.

At this time, my now-husband, then-fiance was interning with the Indiana Pacers, about an hour from where we went to college (Go Hoosiers!). He was also taking 15 credit hours in one of his more difficult semesters. He had no time to cook healthy dinners, grocery shop, or pack substantial lunches.

Meanwhile, I was living on campus as an RA, and never had a kitchen of my own. Campus food had been my jam for three years at this point. At IU, however, that’s not such a bad thing. Seriously, the food’s amazing.

Any who, to help feed my hungry and overworked man, I started watching cooking videos and testing my culinary skills in his nasty kitchen.

Guys, I love him. I love his college roommates. But they lived in one of the nastiest apartments I have ever stepped foot in, and the kitchen was no exception.

If you didn’t wear shoes, crumbs, dust, hairs, and food from two years ago would stick to your feet. I opened the fridge to a 6-month (and counting) expired milk every day. They didn’t get rid of it because, at this point, it was an “experiment”. The pans were all on their last leg, as was every utensil in that kitchen. Every time I went in, I had to do a thorough cleaning to dare prepare food.

But, when it all came down to it, I loved seeing things come together, and knowing that I could provide Braden and myself with some fresh and healthy food. Meals become much more sacred when time, effort, and love are poured in.

Other than this, my Aunt Dede really shaped my love for cooking. The summer before I left for college, I’d spent about a night a week at her house learning how to cook. She hates following recipes. Loathes them. Her method of cooking, and I quote, is to just “throw shit together.” To her, the more garlic, the better.

Unlike my Aunt Dede, when I first started cooking (via a cooking class my junior year), I followed recipes pretty strictly. I couldn’t identify any spices outside of salt and pepper, so I literally had no clue what I was doing. If a taco recipe called for a pound of cumin, I’d be measuring out a pound of cumin.

All this to say that getting to the comfort level of an Aunt Dede in the kitchen takes time. And that’s okay!

I hope as you continue to follow this blog and its’ recipes that you will start to find your footing. I hope eventually that you can just glance at the recipe and the photos and have an idea how to proceed. Heck, I hope you feel the freedom to add your own flare and to make the kitchen a place of fun and creativity.

Tonight, I hope you have fun with these pesto bites, and know that this exact concept can create endless possible fun meals!

Time: 30 minutes

Serves: 2

What you'll need:

For pesto:

1 cup packed basil

1 cup packed spinach

2 tbsp walnuts

1 tbsp nutritional yeast

1/4 cup olive oil

Squirt of lemon juice

Salt and pepper to taste

For breading:

1 cup Panko bread crumbs

2 tsp Italian seasoning

Salt and pepper to taste

Optional: vegan Parmesan, you decide how much

For the rest:

One roll of Pillsbury dough (yes, it's vegan!)

1 cup of spinach

1/4 cup diced onion

1/4 cup diced tomato

1 tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup plain cashew milk

1 cup vegan marinara sauce

What you'll do:

1. Preheat oven to 375

2. Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a medium pan to a medium-high heat. Add diced onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion begins becoming translucent (approx. 6-8 minutes).

3. Meanwhile, combine pesto ingredients into a food processor, and blend until mostly smooth. Set aside.

4. Add tomatoes to pan with onions

5. Roll out the Pillsbury dough, and cut as many 1x1 squares as you can. Set them on a greased pan, and set aside.

6. Lower heat on the pan, and add in spinach. Cook until spinach wilts down.

7. Place 1-2 tsp worth of pesto, and veggie mix on half of the squares (or, pack them as full as you can!), then cover with another square. Make sure to leave extra dough on the edges to press the dough together.

*If you have extra veggies, keep them in the pan for now.

8. Optional: Use a fork to create groves/ press dough together

9. Gently take each pesto bite and dip it in the cashew milk, then coat it in breading