This is too easy to not do.

I need to get off my tush and DO this thing more often!

To catch up:

Not a lot of cooking. I made dinner for some friends a couple weeks ago. 40 Cloves and a chicken. Looked a lot like this...well, it looked EXACTLY like this.

Then I have been eating a lot of salad but to me, a good Caesar isn't, without grilled chicken. I have been putting a homemade blackening seasoning on the fowl. Yum...



Ok, THEN Allison came to visit. I didn't cook save for once and that was when I made Basil Garlic Pesto, Pasta and a salad.

The making of the pesto is too easy. Toast some pine nuts, which can be had from your local Whole Foods or any other Long Hair Hippy food store...most Mega-Marts won't have them. In the oven on a sheet pan at about 325 until you can just begin to smell them and then get 'em out or they'll burn. Those along with 2 cups of basil, some salt, a couple three, four, seven cloves of garlic go for a spin in the food processor until they are good and frapped up...then drizzle in about a 1/2 C of Extra Virgin Olive Oyl until a semi-thick paste forms up...you need to incorporate it all so it doesn't separate on the plate...let the food processor do the work for you.









BUT WAIT! BEFORE MAKING THE PESTO
make the pasta (or cook it). I won't go into details. Put on a gallon or two of water to bring up to a rolling boil. While the water heats, you can make the pasta or the pesto if you are just cooking the pasta. The pics below show the process for the noodles.























I started the pesto after the noodles went into the water and they were done and ready to eat about 10 minutes later.


Hints for pasta in case you never knew -
NEVER EVER put oil in the water. Fresh or dried...it will coat the noodle and the sauce will slide off rather than soak in.
After draining the noodles, put them back into the pot to dry out. stir them around so they don't stick, but get them dried off so that the water will not cause the sauce to wander off the noodle.
Salt the water. Salt the water. Salt the water.
For every pound of pasta, you need a gallon of water. The stuff needs room to move.

Ok - back to the end of the story.

Along with the Arugula salad with walnuts and a very good dressing, it made for a nice lunch at home...just the two of us.