Meatless Mondays: Pasta salad with sweet red pepper Pesto

In all the time that we have been living in Cape Town I have never experienced such a beautiful summer like this year!! 

We stayed at the Table View beachfront for 9 years and I always use to tell everyone that the wind is blowing 360 days a year inC ape Town. We moved to Pinelands for a year and I could not believe how amazing the weather was. This year we moved back to Table View, but not at the beachfront, and the weather has been wonderful with no wind!! 

We mostly are enjoying salads at night and eating Al fresco. 

This Pasta salad is a wonderful dish for Meat free Mondays, but it can also be served as a side dish! 

Ingredients:

For the Red Pepper Pesto:

2 sweet red peppers, quartered

2 chopped garlic cloves

125ml fresh basil leaves

30ml salted peanuts

45ml parmesan cheese

30ml olive oil

5ml balsamic vinegar 

Grill the peppers until the skins are black, about 15 minutes. Take the peppers out of the oven and place into a plastic bag to sweat for about 10 minutes. Peel the skin off. 

Place the peeled red peppers, garlic, basil leaves, parmesan cheese, olive oil and balsamic vinegar into a food processor and blend into a smooth paste. 

For the Salad:

400g Farfalle Pasta, cooked till al dente

1 fresh sweet red pepper, chopped

180g green pitted olives

3 rounds of feta

60ml chopped fresh basil

salt and freshly grounded black pepper 

Mix the cooled cooked pasta with the red pepper pesto. 

Add the sweet red pepper and the pitted olives to the pasta. Crumble the feta cheese over the pasta and mix together. 

Add the fresh basil and season with the salt and black pepper.