Recipe: Roasted Red Pepper Pesto and White Bean Dip {The Food Matters Project}

On Friday, after a week that was essentially a big ball of butter, flour and sugar all rolled up into one (let's recount, shall we?  Chocolate fudge brownie cookies {recipe to come!}, raspberry almond genoise {V-Day dessert}, tres leches cake {second date dessert}, and almost-vegan chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake {potluck at work}.  Really. That all happened.) and a six mile run that made me feel like I was going to have a myocardial infarction (i.e. heart attack) with every step.

I gave up sweets.

Then, on Saturday, I made two dozen red velvet cupcakes.

And ate four.  Plus one (plus or minus two) chocolate s'more cookies.  Obviously.



Which brought us to Sunday.

A day of rest, relaxation, retribution, and reconciliation.

And by rest and relaxation (and..umm..definitely retribution), I totally mean sixty minutes and 16 miles of stationary biking at the gym.  Semantics.



After which, I felt super prepared to forgive and forget my sins of the past week. 

And to do penance in spoonfuls of roasted red pepper pesto and white bean dip. 

{Amen.}

Sometimes payback is a bitch.

But sometimes it's totally delicious. 

This is definitely the latter kind of situation.



With the sweet and almost buttery flavor of roasted red peppers combined with a fresh hit of basil, this dip will certainly leave you feeling refreshed and completely satisfied.

And when you have trouble stopping at just five spoonfuls?  Well.  Don't say I didn't warn you...



For the recipe, head on over to Heather of Girlichef's blog.  I made the white bean dip variation on what was originally a pesto recipe.  The only changes I made were to omit ALL the oil and to use pecans instead of walnuts (I just used what I had on hand).  I served it on a sandwich with roasted eggplant and baby spinach.

For more information about The Food Matters Project and to see how you can join in, click here!

I am submitting this to Souper Sunday, which is hosted by Deb over at Kahakai Kitchen.