Leftover Herb Pesto

Leftover Herb Pesto

It seems to be bug season in my back yard. I made the mistake of going out to trim my tomatoes this evening. Very bad idea. I literally came in and had to take a benadryl since I had so many bites. Cicadas are the other fun visitor my yard now has. They arrived a couple of weeks back. In previous years they have arrived earlier, but this year they didn't arrive until August. Growing up in Seattle I had no idea what a cicada was when I moved here. The first night I tried to fall asleep in my new apartment I was driven crazy by a deafening noise. I had a giant tree outside my window and between the train that went through at 2 am and the cicadas I decided I would never sleep again. Over the years I have gotten used to their deafening noise, but they still aren't my favorite summer sound. Apparently we aren't even supposed to have cicadas this year, wrong. They are in my front yard and they are huge. Plus I don't trust any insect that is part of a horde. It just sounds wrong. So I am avoiding my yard for a couple of days until the bugs leave me alone. Yesterday I had to venture into my yard to cut back my herb garden. It has gone crazy in the last week and I am swimming in basil, so time to make pesto. I tried a new recipe for Leftover-Herb Pesto from Martha Stewart Living.

Virginia Point Park, Kenova, WV

This recipe has 7 ingredients. It takes 5 minutes of total time, all of which is active and makes 3/4 cup of pesto. For the pesto I used basil and tarragon from my garden, pine nuts for the nuts and an extra clove of garlic. I prefer my pesto to have a pretty strong garlic taste. I also added part of the cheese to the food processor and then added the other half to the finished pesto. I prefer the texture with this method. Plus the flavor of the cheese come through better.

View From Virginia Point Park, Kenova, WV

I love making quick and easy recipes. Pesto is a great way to use herbs that you have leftover in your fridge or garden and the taste can be easily adapted based on what ingredients you have on hand. In addition to serving with pasta, this recipe would be great with chicken or fish. I love using pesto with grilled salmon, it's wonderful.

For the recipe go to (video form) Leftover Herb Pesto.

Leftover Herb Pesto

Recipe Type: Main

Summary:

A very simple 7 ingredient pesto recipe. Can be made with any leftover green vegetable in your fridge and a variety of nuts.

Preparation Time: 0h, 5m

Total Time: 0h, 5m

Yield: 3/4 cup

Recipe for Burgers with Mozzarella and Spinach-Arugula Pesto

Burgers with Mozzarella and Spinach-Arugula Pesto and Homemade Buns

The weather was beautiful here today. It finally feels like spring with 80 degree weather and the ability to wear shorts without freezing. The smell of BBQ has been all over my neighborhood as well. I absolutely love the smell of BBQ. There are few smells better than walking outside and smelling someone smoking ribs on a big charcoal side smoker. The weather and the rise of grilling inspired me to make burgers this week. There is something about warm weather and burgers that go hand in hand. My husband bought a huge charcoal grill about 5 years ago. However, this year it needs the rust to be sanded from sitting in our basement and my motivation has been lacking. Therefore I settled for making burgers on my indoor grill this week. Today I tried a new recipe for Burgers with Mozzarella and Spinach-Arugula Pesto from Bon Appetit.

Gluten Free Burgers with Mozzarella and Spinach-Arugula Pesto

This recipe has 15 ingredients. It takes 30 minutes of total time, all of which is active and makes 6 servings. I did make a few changes to the original recipe. First I did two versions, one with homemade hamburger buns and the other with gluten free buns. I had one pound of beef that I had ground with chuck a few months back. I combined the ground beef with 3/4 pound of ground lamb. Since I was short on time I did not wilt the spinach. I often make pesto with spinach and never wilt it, I just puree it in the food processor in batches. For the burgers I ended up with a total of 8 burgers. I like to keep my burgers on the small side, especially since they were blended with ground lamb which can be rich.

For this recipe I used heirloom tomatoes. I love heirloom tomatoes, they are great with burgers. Make sure to salt the pesto and the tomatoes. The salt really helps to bring out the flavor of the tomato and the pesto. Blending the lamb and beef gave the burgers great flavor and my family really enjoyed these burgers. There was also enough pesto leftover to use on turkey burgers later in the week.

For the recipe go to Burgers with Mozzarella and Spinach-Arugula Pesto.

Easy 30 MInute Orecchiette with Scallions and Pistachio Pesto

Gluten Free Orecchiette with Scallions and Pistachio Pesto

Spring has definitely arrived in my kitchen. While the weather in my area is stuck in winter I have been making an effort to start using spring vegetables in my recipes. There is something about making spring foods that always puts me in a better mood and makes me think ahead to the warmer months. My mother-in-law brought me down 2 pounds of ramps which I will be cleaning and posting about in the next couple of days. Spring onions are always a sure sign that the weather will be turning warmer soon. Pesto is a food that I make a lot of in the spring. There are so many flavor combinations that can be created and it is great on pasta, chicken or beef. Since my two boys are both in stages where they love pasta (and little else some days) I have been making most of my pesto to serve with pasta. Last week I tried  new recipe for Orecchiette with Scallions and Pistachio Pesto from Food and Wine magazine.

This recipe has 8 ingredients. It takes 30 minutes of total time, all of which is active and makes 6 servings. Since I eat gluten free I used gluten free orecchiette for this recipe. The recipe was very straight forward and I didn't make many changes. I did find that I had to add a significant amount of salt to the pesto in order for the flavors to come through. This was in addition to adding salted pistachios. Pesto can seem bland when not salted properly. I am a bit salt phobic, except when it comes to pesto. It really does need the taste of the salt in order for the other flavors to shine.

I had never tried gluten free orecchiette before. I sort of wish that I hadn't. There are a number of great gluten free pastas. I love brown rice ziti and spaghetti, however the orecchiette pretty much fell apart. With regular pasta this recipe would be delicious though and a great way to add a vegetarian menu option to your weekly meal plan. The pesto part of the recipe would also be delicious with chicken or fish if you are looking for a meat option.

For the recipe go to Orecchiette with Scallions and Pistachio Pesto.

Crispy Chicken Thighs with Pasta and Pesto

My youngest son has decided that he no longer eats cheese. This is the same son that last year would eat an entire box of macaroni and cheese. It really is hard to keep up with the food preferences of everyone in my house (my husband included). It has gotten to the point that it can change on a daily basis, especially with my oldest. If a friend of his decides that they don't like cheese, than he no longer likes it either. I can handle my own children, but it is almost an impossible battle once they start school and begin being influenced by outside forces. However, I am also stubborn and hold my ground, so I still serve cheese. I am a firm believer that my children eat the same meal that we do, if they don't eat they aren't allowed any of the homemade snacks that I make almost daily. That being said I also don't require them to finish their plate. They have to try at least everything that they are served. 99 percent of the time they eat the rest of their serving. The other 1 percent of the time they hate the dish and that is fine also. The one dish that my whole family loves is roasted chicken. Over the years my children have loved and hated almost every food except chicken. This week I tried a new recipe for Crispy Chicken Thighs with Pasta and Pesto from the January 2013 issue of Southern Living magazine.

This recipe has 8 ingredients. It takes 45 minutes of total time, 15 minutes of which is active and makes 6 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store. Since I eat gluten free I did substitute gluten free rigatoni for the cellentini called for in the recipe. Additionally I used smoked paprika, I love the taste and it is great with chicken. I always use a stainless steel pan to make roasted chicken. It is great to put in the oven and you know when the chicken is browned since it will release (it will stay stuck to the pan until it is browned). It is the best way to get great crispy chicken, just make sure not to flip the chicken before it releases, you can always turn down the heat if you believe that the chicken is starting to brown too quickly. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

The pasta under the chicken in this recipe was delicious. The pasta and pesto were my favorite part. The chicken was your average pan roasted chicken, which was very kid friendly and my children loved. The real star of the recipe was definitely the pesto, just make sure to adequately salt, it really will need it I promise. The pesto would also be delicious with chicken (either with or without skin).

For the recipe go to Crispy Chicken Thighs with Pasta and Pesto.

Pesto Calabrese

This has been a long week, sorry for the lack of posts. I promise I will be back to regular blogging next week. So without further ado, pesto. Growing up there was one food that my mother absolutely adored, eggplant. My father and I however, we not fans in the least. I would literally groan with my mother would come in from the farmer's market with a big bag full of eggplant. She was a good sport and tried recipe after recipe to no avail. When I was in college I survived on coffee and pancakes (really I did, it was cheap for a whole box and I paid my own way through school). I didn't think about or eat eggplant for many years after moving out of my parents house. Then I met my husband and wouldn't you know he loved eggplant as much as my mother had. So what to do. Well, I decided that instead of fighting against the eggplant I would surrender. That didn't mean that I wouldn't find some great recipes to try and hope that maybe, just maybe eggplant could be redeemed. It turned out that as an adult I love eggplant, when cooked the right way. One of the ways that I have found that my whole family loves eggplant is in pasta, so I was quick to want to try the new Pesto Calabrese recipe in a recent issue of Saveur magazine.

This recipe has 9 ingredients. It takes 45 minutes to prep and cook and makes 1 1/2 cups of pesto. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients and made no ingredient modifications. My onions took slightly longer than the 10 minutes suggested by the recipe. I really don't watch the clock when caramelizing onions, I just watch until they are adequately browned. After all the ingredients were combined I cooked them an additional couple of minutes to ensure all the flavor was released. Most important of all make sure to salt. This pesto requires a decent amount of salt in the finished dish, so don't be afraid of the salt shaker. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

I like the idea of this dish. Eggplant is delicious in pasta dishes, but this pesto needs a few changes. I found the pesto to be to sweet with not enough flavor to compensate for the sweetness. I would suggest adding crushed red pepper flakes. This would give the pesto a much needed kick and the amount can be adjusted to suit your tastes. Alternatively chili oil might also work if you have it. With the addition of a little heat I think this pesto would be a great way to use eggplant.

For the recipe go to Pesto Calabrese.

Pasta with Cilantro-Peanut Pesto

This has been a very long day! My husband and I took my two sons to the park twice today. The first time my youngest decided to eat sand, bad idea, this evening the sand, um, came back up. Not so great. I also had a not so pleasant experience at my local super store (you can guess which one). My cashier literally walked away while I was talking to her, nice customer service. This evening my wrath seems to be aimed at social media. I love how my Facebook posts used to be seen by five times as many people as they are now. I really don't know if posting to facebook is worth it any more since they switched to wanting me to pay to have people see my posts. What does all this have to do with food? I cook and bake when I'm stressed. That has been the way I have dealt with stress as far back as I can remember. When I had finals in college everyone at my job was always excited, it meant dozens of fancy cookies would be coming with me to work the next day. When my mom was diagnosed with cancer I made 5 batches of cookies in one night. I made a huge cake when I defended my thesis during grad school (followed up by a big batch of biscuits and gravy). All-in-all cooking and stress seem to go hand-in-hand for me. These last couple of weeks have been stressful thanks to a major change in schedule with my oldest being out of school for the summer. I would love to say my two sons have adjusted beautifully; I can say that I have baked a lot in the last week :) Thanks to all this household stress I have been preparing a number of comfort food recipes. One of my favorite comfort foods is pasta, so a recipe for Pasta with Cilantro-Peanut Pesto in the June issue of Everyday Food caught my eye.

This recipe has 12 ingredients. It takes 20 minutes of total time, all of which is active and makes 4 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery and made no ingredient modifications. I added the full 3 tablespoons of soy sauce and instead of low-sodium I used regular. I prefer using regular soy sauce and not adding additional salt in recipes. Finally, I added the pesto to one pound of spaghetti and there was still leftover pesto. This recipe makes more pesto than the four servings suggested by the recipe I would say closer to 6-8 servings. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

I love pesto and I was impressed with this recipe. I like that instead of the traditional basil, this pesto uses cilantro. Additionally, the soy sauce creates a great umami flavor not normally tasted in traditional pesto. The cilantro brought out a great fresh taste to the recipe and worked very well with the soy sauce. I found that this made a lot of pesto and I used an entire pound of pasta. Instead of stirring together all the pesto and pasta, I served the pesto on the plate so that my family could add the desired amount to their serving. Overall, a great pesto recipe with delicious flavor.

This recipe is currently unavailable online, but can be found in the June issue of Everyday Food Magazine. Here is another recipe for Cilantro-Peanut Pesto and one that uses rice wine vinegar here. I haven't tried these two, but I love hearing if anyone has or if they know of another great pesto recipe, feel free to share!

Roasted Red Pepper and Pistachio Pesto for Cheese Ravioli

Ninety degree days in May are just not right. Don't get me wrong I love a little bit of warm weather, but when it is too hot to want to cook in my kitchen at the beginning of May I know that it is going to be a very long summer. Since the weather has been so warm I have been trying to keep a batch of easy to prepare stove-top recipes. One of my family's favorite type of recipes is pasta. My two boys absolutely adore pasta and could eat it pretty much every day. While my husband and I are pasta fans, we get tired of eating the same dishes over and over again. Therefore I was pleased when the January/February issue of Cook's Illustrated magazine had a recipe for Roasted Red Pepper and Pistachio Pesto for Cheese Ravioli , which looked different than my family's normal pasta routine.

This recipe has 9 ingredients. It takes approximately twenty minutes of prep and cooking time and makes 5 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store and made no ingredient modifications. Instead of raw shelled pistachios I used roasted-salted pistachios. Since my pistachios were already salted I didn't have to add as much salt to my finished pesto. For the ravioli I used fresh four cheese ravioli, which worked perfectly. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

I love pesto sauce and this recipe was delicious! It's a great way to make a new spin on pesto and the roasted red peppers created a great flavor. This dish was very popular with my two boys, they loved it. The only thing I would warn people is that this pesto is very rich when served with ravioli. I think that the pesto might be even better with linguine or another type of unstuffed pasta. Since the ravioli had cheese and the pesto had cheese it was a little rich. Make sure to serve small portions, since a little goes a long way!

This recipe is not available online without a subscription,if you have one it can be found here, but it can also be found in the January/February issue of Cook's Illustrated magazine.

Redbook Tagliatelle with Pesto, Asparagus, and Shrimp

Growing up I was always the kid asking for seconds of asparagus at the Easter table. I love asparagus and have passed on the feelings to my two boys. In the spring when the prices on asparagus go down and they are readily available I buy them at least once a week. For a number of years I made steamed asparagus and added various sauces. Then about 5 years ago I discovered that asparagus is delicious when cooked in pasta dishes or roasted. The great flavor remains without the outside becoming slimy and unappetizing. Recently, Redbook magazine had a recipe for Tagliatelle with Pesto, Asparagus, and Shrimp which looked easy with only 6 ingredients and full of one of my favorite vegetables asparagus.

This recipe has 6 ingredients. It takes 5 minutes of prep and 10 minutes of cooking and makes 4 servings. I used fresh fettuccine since it is the only fresh pasta that was available. To save time during dinner prep I shelled and de-veined the shrimp in the morning. Additionally, I cut the asparagus in the morning, so my dinner prep was minimal. I did notice that the cooking time for the pasta in the recipe is off. My pasta only took a total time of 3 minutes so I added the asparagus at the same time since it needed to be cooked 2-3 minutes. Finally, it took a little longer than the suggested 3 minutes for the wine to reduce. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

I made this dish after a very long day visiting family over the weekend. I was able to make everything in 15 minutes, which was great! My two boys loved the shrimp and ate their servings quickly. Using fresh pasta saves a lot of time, especially when making dinner at the last minute. Best of all the recipe has 46 grams of protein. Overall, a very quick recipe using fresh vegetables and child friendly.

For the recipe go to Tagliatelle with Pesto, Asparagus, and Shrimp.

Martha Stewart Living Pesto

Growing up my mother made a lot of pesto. I remember watching her put the ingredients in the food processor and loving the smell of the fresh basil and pine nuts. Over the years I have tried just about every pesto recipe I can find, from the basic to the unusual. However, I have always come back to the basic pesto recipe, which I love for its clean taste and simplicity. Recently, an issue of Martha Stewart Living had a recipe for Pesto, which like all pesto recipes looked simple and delicious.

Making pesto literally takes about five minutes. This recipe has 6 ingredients and all the work is done in the food processor. The recipe that I used is slightly different than the web version, my version only makes about 3/4 of a cup of pesto and uses two cups of fresh basil. I freeze my pesto in ice cube trays and then pop out a cube when I run out of time to make dinner and stir it together with pasta.

Homemade pesto is a delicious, quick way to get dinner on the table. It's also a great way to use extra fresh basil from your garden and works well frozen in ice cube trays for later use. Pesto is always a hit with my family and is a stable in my household, especially during the summer months. This is a great recipe for people that don't cook frequently and want to make more meals from scratch, it goes together quickly and can be used on meat, pizza or pasta.

For the recipe go to Martha Stewart Pesto Recipe.

Better Homes and Gardens Garden Veggie Linguine with Cilantro Pesto

Growing up my mother made a lot of pesto. I loved the Sunday nights when she made pesto, the house would smell wonderful and there would be enough frozen cubes of pesto to last through several meals. When I left home I stopped making pesto and didn't start making it again until after I was married. I have made a variety of different basil pesto recipes, but few pestos using other ingredients. The May issue of Better Homes and Gardens had a recipe for garden veggie linguine with cilantro pesto, which looked out of the rut of my usual basil pesto recipes.

This recipe uses a decent amount of fresh veggies. I was unable to find baby zucchini, so I followed the recipe suggestion of a small regular zucchini. This recipe goes together very quickly. Almost the entire prep time is waiting for the pasta to cook, with the veggies taking only minutes to prepare. I found the dish to take far less than the 30 minutes suggested. I followed the recipe as stated. I did use whole wheat spaghetti because it was the variety I had on hand in my pantry. My one suggestion is to make sure that the pasta water is adequately salted, especially since the vegetables are cooked in the same water.

My two sons actually picked the veggies out of this dish. They were unsure of the green pasta, but loved the veggies. My husband and I appreciated that it was a change of pace of the usual basil pesto recipes. The dish goes together very quickly and is a great way to incorporate fresh veggies.

For the recipe go to Better Homes and Gardens Garden Veggie LInguine with Cilantro Pesto .