Walnut-Basil Pesto Day 2

Pesto on sandwiches is really really great. For this I just cut up some of our favorite veggies-zucchini, yellow squash, artichokes, red bell peppers, baby portabella mushrooms, asparagus, spinach and onions-mixed them in a bowl with a little olive oil and sea salt and then cooked them in a hot cast iron skillet until they were nice and brown. Then I took a chiabatta loaf, cut it into sandwich size slices, spread some pesto on the top, filled the bottom with the veggies, put it on a cookie sheet and baked it at 300 for about 10 minutes. Just to warm it all up. After I got it out of the oven I spread some sundried tomato mayo on the bottom slice on the bread and served it up with roasted garlic couscous (from a box). To make the sundried tomato mayo just mix a cup of mayo (I like vegonase) with a few chopped up sundried tomatos and 2 small cloves of finely minced garlic and some salt and pepper. It is great on every kind of sandwich we have tried. Including Faken' Bacon BLT's...but that is a recipe for another day. I hope you try this and enjoy. It is a great way to get all your little green dots, Miss Candy :)

For Lisa

Happy Spring!

Pesto

I mentioned a few days ago that eating less meat is a great way to do something positive for the environment. Well, a friend of mine emailed me and mentioned that she doesn't know many vegetarian meals and asked for some of my favorites. Of course, I am happy to share them, hopefully you will try them and let me know what you think.

Walnut-Basil Pesto is a favorite in our house. This recipe is based off of one from "The Omega Diet". It is healthy due to all of the "good" fats from the olive oil and walnuts. But more than that it tastes great and is super easy. You don't need much pesto to flavor your pasta so this recipe will make enough for at least two meals. You can freeze whatever you have left and then just leave it on the counter for a few minutes to defrost the next time you want to use it.

Walnut-Basil Pesto

2 cups packed basil leaves

1/3 cup of olive oil

1/2 cup walnuts, roughly chopped

2 small cloves of garlic, minced or crushed

1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Place basil, walnuts, garlic and salt into a food processor and pulse a few times. Once all the ingredients are chopped turn the food processor on and stream in the olive oil. Blend until finely chopped and well combined.

2. Just before serving add about 2 tbsp of hot pasta water from the cooked pasta to the pesto. (Only add the pasta water to the pesto that you plan to eat right away. Separate any pesto that you want to save for later).

3. Mix it with pasta and enjoy. My favorite pasta to eat this with is tortellini but it is also great on whole wheat pastas, the strong flavor of the pesto covers up much of the wheat flavor in the whole wheat pasta (if that bothers you).

I usually serve my pasta with garlic bread and salad and then plan to have roasted veggie sandwiches later that same week because this pesto is great on a sandwich. I will post pictures of the sandwiches later. I hope you like this pesto recipe.

Coming up

Our house is right by Folly Pier, a favorite surfing spot on Folly Beach. Surfing! YAY!

Heavy

Life feels heavy today. Cyclones and earthquakes and wildfires and volcanoes and gay bashing and loss. What I might say on this blog seems irrelevant and minuscule. I suppose this is why people pray, to have a place to put all the heartache and sadness so that they can move on to worrying about things like gas prices and parking spots. In a way I am secretly glad that gas is so expensive. Yes, listening to people fret about it and complain is so tiresome and frustrating...but it is clear to me that it is the ONLY way that some people will even think about their energy consumption. People that have not put one thought or effort into thinking about their contribution to our global crisis that is causing, I believe, catastrophic events like what has happened in China and Burma these past weeks, are now thinking about taking the bus or carpooling or buying a hybrid car. It makes me sad to know that money is what it takes to make people care about our planet and the gas prices have hit my family just as hard as everyone elses, but I will deal with it if it means that people will act and live in a way that is better for the planet. I want there to be something here for my grandchildren.
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On that note did you know that reducing your red meat/dairy consumption by 20% will reduce your carbon footprint as much as driving a hybrid car. 20% That is what, 2 less burgers a week and maybe a salad one night instead of a supreme pizza.

Anticipation

Peonies are so fantastic. Every morning I look at them and feel certain that they are going to bloom today. I think to myself- that bloom could not possibly get any bigger-and then it does. They are so full and their color peeking through the top is so bright, it just looks delicious. Seriously...I have an overwhelming urge to eat them.
My Mom never planted peonies in her garden growing up, I'm not sure why. So this is my first spring with a peony and I have already decided that next spring the walkway to our back door will be lined on both sides with peonies. Right now we have 3 bushes, I think we need 2 more on the East side and 5 on the West side of the walk way. This time next year it is going to be awesome.

A Chocolate Send Off

I made chocolate cupcakes tonight for my coworker Shawn. Her last day is tomorrow and she loves chocolate. There is a whole lotta chocolate going on here. At first I was thinking I should have made a double batch so that everyone could have 2, but after trying my "test" cupcake I can't imagine that someone could eat more than one. They are fantastically rich.

This is a new recipe. I planned on topping the cupcakes with a chocolate ganache icing. Ganache is the really smooth chocolate in the center of a truffle and it makes a fantastic icing. But I couldn't get it to set up. So I put it in the fridge and threw together a chocolate buttercream. After icing all the cupcakes and wrapping them to store for the night I opened the fridge and found a bowl of perfectly set ganache . So, it looks like I am going to be making some more chocolate cupcakes tomorrow night. Anyone have a birthday this weekend?

Weekend

I did a lot of chores this weekend. Mowing and laundry and...blah blah blah. But I found some time to play with rick-rack. I made a little this and a little that and have been working on a top secret something....which I can show you pictures of after May 19th :) Until then here is a little sneak peak.

Geeking out

Everybody has something that they geek out about. My husband geeks out about Star Track. I geek out about NPR. Today on What Do You Know? they mentioned Lawrence KS. I feel famous.