Veritas-ty: Spinach Pesto Pasta

Though I am far from a master chef (unless you consider meatloaf a gastronomic piece de resistance), I will occasionally post some kid-friendly, easy-to-prepare recipes for you to try out on your little ones.  It may be a cultural thing, but food has always been very important in my family - and I have always tried to make sure my kids eat a variety of healthy, interesting foods for their physical and mental development.  Thankfully, they are now both good eaters, but I struggled for awhile with periodic rebellions against certain food groups.  Beef, pork and chicken were always the hardest and for awhile, I had to get creative to get one of my daughters to eat any kind of animal protein.  

Enter Covert Operation Hide-the-Meat, for this was serious business.  Yes, the things I did are, in retrospect, a little embarrassing, but I was determined to get my growing little girls the nutrition they needed.  One of my favorite tricks was to puree a few pieces of meat and spread it like a paste between the cheese of a grilled cheese sandwich.  They were none the wiser and if they did question the taste, I had plausible denial that I carried out the operation.  Muffins are another excellent culinary vehicle for hiding nutritious contraband.  Jessica Seinfeld revolutionized this concept in her cookbook, Deceptively Delicious, with dishes like Cauliflower Mac and Cheese, Sweet Potato Pancakes and Spinach Brownies.  

Along those lines, my recipe for today (compliments of one of my favorite women on earth - you know who you are!) is Spinach Pesto Pasta, which I used to tell my kids was Green Mac and Cheese.  Whatever you choose to name it, it is guaranteed to be a hit with the whole family.  

Ingredients

1 small container of prepackaged pesto

1 large bag of frozen spinach

1 tablespoon of light mayo

1 box of rotini pasta

Parmesan cheese 

Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling water.

Mix together the pesto, spinach and mayo in a food processor.

Stir the pesto mixture into the pasta and mix in the grated cheese.

Serves 4-6