Handmade Basil Pesto for GBP Summer 07

A recipe that mentions its source as grandmother or mother instantly attracts my attention. I have a sort of blind faith in such recipes. When Heidi of 101 cookbooks blogged this pesto recipe from her friend’s mother, it was instantly bookmarked.

Our basil herbs were fresh with new young sprouts after a recent harvest and it would be perfect with the grilled lamb chops that were making for dinner. And better yet, no food processor to clean.

Original recipe here

Young basil leaves – 1 cup packed.

Garlic- 2 cloves

Pine nuts – 2 tbsp

Parmesan cheese freshly grated- 1/4 cup

Good quality extra virgin olive oil- 2 tbsp

For mincing, you will need a sharp mezzaluna, but I replaced it with a crinkle cutter.

There is only one step. Mince till you get a fine mince of the ingredients. Heidi recommends starting with the garlic and 1/3 rd basil. Keep adding the ingredients in parts till everything is minced. Start with garlic, then basil, followed by pine nuts and cheese.

Once mincing is done, transfer the pesto into a bowl and add the olive oil.

At this point I kept it in the refrigerator. At dinner time, mixed it with some cold angel hair for a cold pasta side dish. It was delicious. Thanks Heidi for sharing this wonderful recipe. It was really relaxing mincing and mixing with hand and using the crinkle cutter.

As Heidi said, there is no salt and pepper in the pesto. So salt your pasta water generously.

This is my entry for Summer Green Blog Project being hosted by Deepz of Letz Cook.

GBP was originally born in the ever scheming head of dear Inji. Ever since many bloggers have discovered their green thumbs and have grown wonderful things. Join the fun!

Happy Birthday, Meeta.

When summer comes, the roses in our garden steal the show. We have a climbing rose that blooms with a vengeance. Even better, once the summer blooms are gone, they bloom again around fall. What better flower to celebrate Meeta’s birthday. Her dishes are glamorous, her pictures captivating and sleek, and her writing is lots of fun. She has invited us over to celebrate, and I had to make something elegant! Got to keep up, right?

Original recipe: Here

I made this dish when I was really hungry, and so measurements are approximate.

Make the pasta according to package instructions. I only made enough for one serving.

While the pasta is cooking, you can assemble ingredients for the pasta. I took about 15 basil leaves, a tbsp of pine nuts, a garlic clove, generous splash of rose water and streamed in olive oil into the food processor to make a pesto. Then I added parmesan cheese (grated), salt and pepper to complete the pesto.

Once the pasta is cooked, mix it with the pesto and decorate the dish using rose petals. You can leave the petals as it is. I made confetti like pattern by just slicing the petals into thin strips.

I was very very skeptical about the dish, but I ate every bite of it and enjoyed it. The aroma of the rose water is not overpowering. I think the aroma of the basil leaves blends well with the rose water. A simple dish made elegant with the sprinkling of rose flower confetti!!

Meeta, I hope you enjoy the dish and wish you a very happy Birthday!!

Tale of two pestos

Parsley leaves and flower
Althouth we make pasta quite often, we have never made pesto before. Pasta and pesto sound so close, no wonder they are made for each other. I had some parsley growing crazy in my garden and some of them had started to flower which meant that if I dont act quickly, they would all be gone and not edible anymore. So we had to act fast. Meanwhile Satish had been craving for pasta for some time. And finally it seemed to be the best possible time for some ‘pasta with pesto’.

I just read the rules of herb blogging and it requires you to write somehting about the herb. Makes sense, but I hardly know anything about parsley except that it is used in Italian and Meditteranean cooking, and also have two forms- the curly one and the flat leaf one. The ones I grew were flat leaf . They hardly require any special growing conditions. I never watered them regularly, they just grew on rain water. I definitely had to search for more info on this herb and this is what I found.

Parsley is the world’s most popular herb. It derives its name from the Greek word meaning “rock celery” (parsley is a relative to celery). It is a biennial plant that will return to the garden year after year once it is established.Parsley is among a small number of foods that contain any measurable amount of oxalates, naturally-occurring substances found in plants, animals, and human beings. When oxalates become too concentrated in body fluids, they can crystallize and cause health problems. For this reason, individuals with already existing and untreated kidney or gallbladder problems may want to avoid eating parsley.(Info from here.)

One of the blog posts in The Traveler’s Lunchbox some time ago had been on pestos, and it had somehow stuck to my brain. So I found the recipe, but unfortunately it did not have a recipe for parsely pesto but it did have one for a sundried tomato pesto (Pesto Rosso). It looked so fab that we had to try that out. Now as for the parsley, this recipe came to my aid.

 

Parsley Pesto Ingredients( I did not measure any ingredients, just combined them all and tasted it to balance all the ingredients.)Parsley, pine nuts, parmesan grated, salt, garlic and extravirgin olive oil.
Now we all know linguini is cooked as it is, I mean in its all entire form (not broken).But recently we had eaten at an Indo Chinese restaurant in NY City and I had loved the hakka noodles which looked like linguini broken into small pieces. So that is what I did with the linguini…broke it into 3 parts.

 

Linguini with two pestos– sundried tomato pesto and parsley pesto.

Made a batch of each pesto and mixed it with pasta. We were very satisfied with both pestos. The remaining pesto was used as a sandwich filler. We still had leftover pesto which we had with some bread and cheese.

 

 

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging held by our own Bachelor Boy.

Tagged Weekend Herb Blogging, Parsley Pesto.

Broccoli rabe and pasta soup….

I love Italian food and broccoli rabe with sausage is a favorite in our home. The bitterness of the broccoli rabe goes nicely with the spicy sweetness of the sausage. It is so easy to make too..

This dish was created when we both were too tired to make a pasta dish to go with the broccoli rabe. So I just added it directly to the broccoli rabe and this is the end result…Literally it was meal in one pot.
This typically is a dry dish but to add the pasta there needed to be some water, so I added chicken broth and miscalculated..there was a little too much water and so it ended up as a soup but delightful in every way. Just what two tired souls needed on a cold winter day.

Ingredients ( The measurements are approximate)
Olive oil – enough to stir fry sausage

Sausage- 3 or 4

Garlic – 2 cloves

Onion -1 medium diced

Crushed red pepper- according to personal preference ( 1 used 1/2 tsp)

Pasta any kind (unccoked) – 1 cup

Chicken broth 1 can

Salt and pepper

Grated Parmesan cheese – to sprinkle on top

Broccoli rabe – 1 bunch

Method

Add olive oil to a hot pan and fry the sausages till half cooked.

To this add sliced onions and cook till slightly brown. Add some crushed red pepper and crushed garlic to this.

To this add the chicken broth, cover with lid and let the sausage cook in the steam. When the broth starts to simmer, add the uncooked pasta and keep covered. If the broth seems insufficient add more broth or water.

When the pasta is 3/4 th cooked add the cleaned broccoli rabe which has been sliced into about one and a half inch size pieces.Check the pasta and rabe and when it is cooked enough, the dish is ready to serve. Adjust seasonings and serve with grated Parmesan cheese.

February 2 add on:

While browsing through blogs I came across the idea of Virtual Recipe Club at The Savory Notebook

The theme this is week is ‘soups ‘ and I thought this might be appropriate for submission. Seems like I have been participating in a quite a few blog events!