It's been quite a depressing hiatus. My sister and I bought a new stove that was delivered a few weeks ago, 5 burners with 17,000 BTUs of pure cooking joy.
Due to the lack of a stud along the bottom of one of my kitchen walls, there was no way for the guys delivering my precious shiny stove to install it because California requires anti-tip brackets be screwed into a stud on the rare occurrence that my small town in Northern California have some earthquake so powerful it knocks my stove out from between the two cupboards it's wedged between and because there was no stud they wouldn't reinstall the old stove so lucky us we got to use a hot plate!
The English major in me isn't even appalled at that run-on, the whole thing was that annoying.
I spent most of the following week out of town, racing between San Francisco and Fort Bragg and Vallejo for a movie premier and camping and my birthday celebration, so I was eating out most of the time anyway. Then the fates threw me a couple curve balls in the form of three mailings to Apple to have my computer fixed twice and my power cable replaced and then a broken camera. The three things I need to run a blog are a computer, a stove, and a camera.
But here I am, newly 27 and everything fixed and ready to get back on track.
My biggest problem when cooking isn't usually skill or lack of ideas, it's lack of funding for the proper ingredients to make the things I want to make. See also: laziness. The grocery store can be so far away sometimes and often I let my hunger get to a point where I can't function unless I shove something in my mouth immediately, which can lead to some not so gourmet choices.
I've been successfully growing my own basil the last few weeks which is totally astounding to me as I tent to kill everything green I try to nurture. My parents were both landscapers and apparently none of the genes were hereditary because my thumb has never been any shade but skin color. I digress. I'd been itching to make my own pesto for a while since the basil appeared to be thriving, but I lacked the other ingredients to make it work. My sister came home from work one night in a fit of hunger and we decided to try it out.
We first had a slight hiccup in our plan as we boiled up some orzo, thinking incorrectly that it was wheat-free....no, it's pasta and is sitting sadly in our fridge waiting for someone to come over and eat it. No cook is perfect.
I grabbed some gluten-free vegetable spiral pasta and boiled that up real quick (more BTUs equals intensely fast boiling time) and we were on our way. We threw handfuls of makeshift ingredients into a food processor and kept tasting and adding until it finally tasted surprisingly delicious and voila, Happy Accident Pesto Pasta. Don't be freaked out that it looks like baby food, it tastes much much better.
Happy Accident Pesto Pasta
About two handfuls of fresh Basil
Two heaping spoonfuls of sun dried tomatoes with oil
Handful of walnuts
A few almonds
Dash of Salt
Gluten-Free Spiral Pasta (or any gluten-free pasta)
Throw all ingredients into a food processor and grind up. This is not at all an exact science and we kept adding different things to get the taste right. If needed you can add more oil to get the consistency more saucelike. It was quite a lovely summer evening dinner as the pesto cooled down the pasta and it was nice and light. It's also super quick to make, only about 10 minutes, so if you find yourself in the middle of an i'm-starving-and-must-shovel-food-into-my-face-right-this-second-or-my-stomach-will-eat-itself fit, just whip this sucker up. Lastly, I think this could be stellar with some grilled chicken thrown in as well if you want to make your meal a little heartier.
Bon Appetit, just not wheat!
About two handfuls of fresh Basil
Two heaping spoonfuls of sun dried tomatoes with oil
Handful of walnuts
A few almonds
Dash of Salt
Gluten-Free Spiral Pasta (or any gluten-free pasta)
Throw all ingredients into a food processor and grind up. This is not at all an exact science and we kept adding different things to get the taste right. If needed you can add more oil to get the consistency more saucelike. It was quite a lovely summer evening dinner as the pesto cooled down the pasta and it was nice and light. It's also super quick to make, only about 10 minutes, so if you find yourself in the middle of an i'm-starving-and-must-shovel-food-into-my-face-right-this-second-or-my-stomach-will-eat-itself fit, just whip this sucker up. Lastly, I think this could be stellar with some grilled chicken thrown in as well if you want to make your meal a little heartier.
Bon Appetit, just not wheat!
love love love the sundried tomatoes in there! I am going to totally try this, once my basil plant grows back (I've stripped it nearly bare).
ReplyDelete