Sainsbury's fresh taglionini with rocket pesto

Shop bought pasta parcels in all shapes and sizes are often my fallback option for a quick dinner. But I think this is pretty much my only experience of fresh non-filled pasta, and I've never thought to buy a fresh alternative to my long lasting packets of dried spaghetti and linguine.
But in the spirit of trying something a bit new I picked up a bag of tagliolini from the refrigerated shelves of Sainsbury the other week. As the name seems to indicate these ribbons are a bit thinner than tagliatelle, and are enriched with egg giving the pasta a lovely yellow tinge. It's also made in Italy which probably helps those concerned with authenticity (surely our Italian brethren wouldn't send over duff pasta?).

It just needs a couple of minutes in boiling water to cook, and I served it with a simple rocket pesto. The pesto was made with this recipe, but substituting two big handfuls of rocket (around 50g) for the basil and also adding in a small chunk of grana padano or Parmesan cheese. The mellow richness of the pasta was a lovely match to the sharper flavours of the pesto. In fact I think I could have made things even simpler, and could quite easily have eaten this pasta with just a little butter or olive oil and salt and pepper.
I've never made my own pasta from scratch, and until I do I think this version from Sainsbury makes a seriously good substitute.

Sainsbury's fresh tagliolini
I rate it 8.5/10
Cost: Around £1.55 for a 500g bag

Vegan pesto

Pesto with spaghetti is a very reliable quick supper, but it only takes a couple of minutes longer to make fresh pesto rather than use some ready-made stuff from a jar (especially if you have a Kenwood mini-chopper or something similar). It also has the advantage of being packed full of fresh flavours.
I am not a vegan but a lack of appropriate cheese meant that this pesto ended up being dairy-free. Do add some pecorino, grana padano or parmesan if you have any, but it's not actually essential as the pine nuts do a good job of contributing richness to the pesto. So to make enough for one combine the following:

Small bunch of basil (about 5 or 6 long stalks)
Two fat cloves garlic
Small handful pine nuts (toast first in a dry pan if you want)
Enough olive oil to make a loose paste
Salt and pepper to taste

Whizz up the above in a food processor or by hand, and when it's done stir through some hot spaghetti or other pasta. Warning- the heat from the pasta will 'cook' out the raw garlic a bit but it's still a pretty powerful flavour. I love garlic but you might want to limit consumption of this dish to when you are planning on staying in rather than heading out on a first date, job interview, etc, etc.