Easter is actually a very ‘trying’ season for those diet-conscious thanks to plenty of calories-rich-food and the abundance of Easter eggs at this time of the year! There are so many Easter eggs around that sometimes it’s one egg for each meal, yea, it’s that bad. Any idea how to get rid of many hard-boiled eggs at one go without resorting to letting them rot away? I came across a recipe which involves plenty of hard-boiled eggs and it requires some pesto making! Voila, it’s like killing two birds with a stone’s throw. I’ve always wanted to give pesto a try and you’ll never know what stores inside those ready-made-store-bought pesto despite what’s written on their labels. I smiled with glee when I came across this rather simple recipe of pesto with tomatoes and hazelnuts.

Noodle nest with tomato-hazelnut-pesto and an Easter egg

This pesto recipe serves four.
You need:
75g sun-dried (preferably organic) tomatoes
1 garlic clove
3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
50g hazelnuts
1 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
75ml olive oil
Salt and freshly grounded black pepper to taste
2 hard boiled eggs
250g macaroni noodles (depending on the amount of people)

Preparations:
1. Soak the tomatoes in hot water for about 20 minutes. After that, squeeze out extra water and chopped them in bite size chunks.

2. Use a hand-held blender, blend the chopped tomatoes together with the garlic, parsley, hazelnuts and lime juice. Add in olive oil gradually while blending. Add in salt and pepper to taste.

3. Cook the macaroni according to the instructions on its packet until al dente. Spoon about four to five tablespoons of the pesto into an extra bowl and dilute it with about two tablespoons of water used for cooking the macaroni.

4. Mix the noodles together with the pesto and twirl the noodles to form a nest (just like an Easter egg nest) and place the egg in the middle of the nest .

*Transfer the remaining pesto into a glass jar and douse some olive oil onto the pesto. It can be kept in the fridge for up to a week.

The pesto has a nutty flavour to it that is very pleasant to the palate. Invite some friends over and those Easter eggs will disappear in no time .