Heart of Thorns has been out for a month now and I’ve been really enjoying the new content. Last week, raids were introduced to the game and I was able to spend a handful of hours attempting it this weekend. We are still learning how to handle the transition phases with the first boss, the Vale Guardian, but haven’t gotten him down yet. I’m sure as we make more attempts and make some minor adjustments to our composition we will get him. Overall I’ve been very happy with the difficulty of the raid and can’t wait to jump into it some more. Fractals were another thing I was looking forward to with the expansion. The allure of 50 more fractals and each level being one zone got me really excited. However, since the launch I’ve done less fractals daily and have been pretty bummed by the changes that were made to them. Rewards have been very disappointing and I’ve become less motivated to do them. I do the daily recommended fractal to continue progress on my back piece precursor but rarely do any more than that. The good news is Arenanet is taking a look at the rewards and an update should be coming in December. I’m hoping fractals will be exciting again (fingers crossed).
It seems to be the right time to present another recipe from Guild Wars 2. As the holiday season gets underway, it is always nice to have a few sides you can take to parties. One of my recent favorites is a pesto pasta salad. I made this for my company’s annual Thanksgiving potluck. This was the easiest potluck dish I’ve done. You can make this the night before and it will only take under an hour to put it all together. If you want an easy and super tasty side, this recipe is totally for you. Enough talk, time to cook!
Required Equipment: large bowl, cheese grater, food processor, pot, spoon
Results: 6-10 servings
Ingredients:
Pesto:
55 g basil
40 g pinenuts
45 g parmesan cheese, grated
3-5 tbsp olive oil
5 garlic cloves
juice of half
salt
pepper
500 g pasta, cooked
20-30 mini tomatoes
small mozzarella balls
In a food processor grind up the garlic. Add the basil and puree.
Add the pinenuts, parmesan cheese and lemon juice. Mix until smooth. Slowly add the olive oil until it forms a nice thick paste. Season with salt and pepper.
Combine the cooked pasta and pesto in a large bowl.
Finally fold in the tomatoes and mozzarella balls. When I made mine I left it in the refrigerator overnight and served it the next day.
Nice recipe! I’m allergic to nuts, can I just leave them out or do i need to replace them with something?
Hmm. I’m not sure about that one because I haven’t tried it personally.
After some research online there is a French sauce called pistou. It is very close to pesto but does not use the nuts. Seems to add another cheese to the sauce to make up for the lack of nuts. I’d recommend looking that up as a replacement for the sauce portion of this recipe.