 Hey everyone, one of my favorite herbs is basil and so I decided that I would be making a recipe for you that is using pesto sauce because it's just so good and it can be used in a gazillion different ways in different recipes. So today's recipe I decided I would make a pasta dish for you and we're going to be using some salmon and some cannellini beans and some asparagus and we're going to toss it all together. It's going to be quick and easy and it's going to be delicious and nutritious. So I'm Rockin' Robin and I'm going to show you how to do it right after my chef joke. All right, we're going to have two chef jokes today so let's get started with the first one. What do you call an Italian fortune teller who has a negative outlook on the future? A Pesto Mystic. All right, let's talk about our ingredients. First up we have our pasta. You got some options here. I'm using Bons of Pasta which is made out of chickpeas. It is gluten free. You don't have to use that. You can use regular pasta. You could even use Zoodles or you could even do a combination of Zoodles and any pasta that you want. And that way you're just bumping up your vegetable intake and it's very good. Next up is our salmon. Now you could use fresh salmon but I'm making this simple and easy for you. We're using canned salmon and I tell you this is a good brand. It's expensive but salmon is expensive. And that way you're getting some nice protein, good Omega 3's and it's just really healthy. Next up is our pesto sauce. I'm using a store-bought pesto sauce today. You can do the same. You can also make it from scratch which is really healthy and I have a video for you and I'll leave a link for you down in the description. You can find that and make your own if you want. Or a store-bought. Now what you want to look for in a store-bought is really the ingredients. Check out those ingredients. What you want them to be using is real olive oil. Not canola oil, not soybean oil or something else. Every pesto is made with olive oil. I'm also going to be adding a can of cannellini beans here that I've already rinsed and drained. We have some fresh garlic, just a little clove there. I just put it through the old garlic press. Next I'm going to toss in a little bit of shredded carrot. I have some asparagus here that I'm going to cut up into bite-sized pieces. I'm going to garnish this with some fresh basil because I love basil. And I'm going to spice it up with just a little bit of red pepper flakes. We'll need some salt and some olive oil. So I'm going to start off here by working on the asparagus. I'm just going to break off the ends where they break naturally. That way you get rid of the woody part. Feel free to sub in other veggies if you want. You could do broccoli, zucchini. I mean, it's just your preference. I think asparagus goes really well and if you like it, it's a good one to use. All right, I'm going to give these a nice rinse and then we'll chop them up. Okay, we're ready to start cooking. Here's our setup. I've got my frying pan where we're going to be mixing everything in here and cooking it in here. This is our pasta water over here. Let's put a little bit of salt in there and it's getting hot. My pasta is going to take about 8 to 10 minutes to cook. So basically I want to time everything so that everything comes out at the same time. So I've got my large frying pan over medium-high heat and what we're going to do first is add some olive oil to that and get it hot. And we're going to saute our vegetables for just a few minutes. Take the raw edge off, get them slightly al dente. Whatever vegetables you're using, you'll want to do that. So toss those in along with the carrots. So we're going to cook this for about four minutes or until the veggies are about al dente. Now I'm just going to put a touch of salt in here just to bring out a little flavor. This is almost done. Now our pasta water is ready, boiling away over here. It's time to cook our pasta. I'll drop that in and give it a stir. Check that in eight minutes. Alright, it's been about four minutes here on the asparagus and the carrots. It is time to add the garlic. I'm going to toss that in, work it in for one minute just to mellow out the flavor. Give it a good stir. I've turned my heat down to medium low and now we're going to add our beans to the mixture just to heat them up. They're already cooked, of course. Same thing with the salmon, it's already cooked so we're going to add that in. I broke it up into little pieces so that it would spread around and break it up some more. I'm going to sprinkle in some red pepper flakes, just a few. I'm going to stir the pasta, make sure that's going well. Now I'm going to add the pesto sauce to this. And we're going to keep some of that pasta water because we might use it to thin out this sauce in our dish here. So I've got the pesto sauce in there. Feel free to add more if you like more sauce. Now all we have to do is wait for the pasta to be done and it goes right in the pan and dinner is served. This is a quick meal any day of the week. While the pasta is cooking, we have time for Chef Joke number two. Alright, so what did the Italian magician say after his trick? Pesto! Okay, pasta is done, I'm going to drain it and I'm going to pour it into our pan and we're going to mix it up. Now because I like a little more pesto sauce, I'm going to add just a little bit more to this. Just a little bit. Mix it in the best you can. It is ready to go guys, this is time to eat. The only thing left to do for our dish, and it looks fantastic, is to chop up some fresh basil and I'll just sprinkle it over the top. Now you see how quick and easy that was, I mean this dinner is on the table in a matter of just a few minutes. Don't wait to dig in. It's delicious. The sauce is what makes this dish. It is a little bit of garlic, a little bit of everything in there, the basil really brings it to life. I just love this dish guys, hope you enjoy it. And if you love Mexican food, you're going to want to try my beef tostada here. That beef is so tender. This is oh so delicious with that sour cream, avocado, cheese and dressing. Don't miss it. Go ahead and click that link.