Things that are the truth:

My road to accepting coeliac life has been one of denial and pathetically feeling sorry for myself. As a result I continue to eat croissants, donuts, ice cream, sweets, chocolate, bread well basically all the gluten (in light of telling the truth) and the days that I feel guilty about that I eat an embarrassingly large amount of rice crackers. While I do (shamefully) still continue to eat everything I want, pasta is the one, and only exception. And the genuinely only reason for that is Barilla gluten free pasta. For those that are coeliac, intolerant, want to lessen the gluten blows or are just curious, hand to heart, Barilla is the best available in the pantry aisle.

Also truths: broccoli and ricotta and pesto go together like When Harry Met Sally (when they stopped hating each other and accepted fate, obviously)

Broccoli & Ricotta Pesto Pasta

Ingredients

• 1 small broccoli, roughly chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Handful of grated parmesan
• Handful of fresh basil
• 1/2 cup of olive oil
• 5tbs ricotta
• Salt & pepper
• 500g pasta – I used Barilla GF spaghetti

Method

Grab our your food processor and start by pulsing the broccoli, garlic, parmesan and basil. Once it starts to break down slowly pour in the olive oil and continue to process until a wet pesto like mixture forms. Add a generous amount of salt and pepper and the ricotta then pulse for a couple of seconds or until the ricotta is fully combined.

Now pop your salted water on the boil and start to cook your pasta then get out another pot (preferably non-stick) and gently cook the pesto over a low heat for 2-3 minutes then turn off the heat. Remember, the pesto is raw broccoli and this point so you just need to get rid of the earthy taste.

Once the pastas done plop it into the pesto pot along with a little splash of pasta water, stir through then serve with extra pepper, parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil.