Tag Archives: Pasta Dishes

Pistachio Pesto

Pistachio Pesto

Pistachio Pesto

Wow, it’s been almost two months since I’ve posted. It’s been a busy summer! But it’s the great comments to this blog that made me realize I need to get back to it. Like Mr. Cialis, who had some nice things to say, as well as offering a helpful link to great deals on cheap generic prescription drugs that I’m sure would be hard to find anywhere else on the internet. And who could forget iqquagnsufpk, who memorably said and I quote,  “TSw4mS xwpxpjepzcux”. Not quite sure what he or she was getting at, but I’m sure it was well-intentioned and profound. Makes me almost want to turn commenting back on.

Anyway, it’s late July, and if you’re growing tomatoes and basil in the midwest like me, that means big beautiful basil bushes but probably just a couple ripe tomatoes so far. Especially with the late start we got this spring, with all the cold and the rain. So it’s a perfect time to make pesto. And with the hot humid 90+ weather we’ve had for like the entire month of July, who wants to cook. The only thing you need to heat up for this is water to boil the pasta.

Pesto is really good– for us it’s a real taste of summer. It works great by itself as a vegetarian meal, or you can thaw some pre-cooked cocktail-style shrimp and throw it in. Or serve it as a side dish with some barbecued chicken.

Usually you use pine nuts in pesto, but I had a big bag of shelled pistachios hanging around, and I knew from past experience pistachios work great in pesto. But traditional pine nuts are good too.

Ingredients:

  • 2 Cups basil leaves
  • 1/4-1/2 Cup shredded parmesan cheese
  • 2-3 cloves garlic
  • 1-2 tomatoes
  • 2-3 Tbs. Olive oil
  • 1 Tsp. Salt
  • 1/4 Cup pistachios (or pine nuts)
  • Coarse-ground pepper to taste

Special utensils:

  • Food processor

Serves 2-4

Wash basil leaves and separate the leaves that are in good condition from the stems and the damaged leaves. Chop the garlic coarsely and add all ingredients except tomato to the food processor. Set processor to chop, and chop the pesto ingredients in short pulses, stopping frequently to take a spatula to fold the unchopped stuff along the outside toward the bottom to get everything evenly chopped. Don’t overprocess it– Pesto should be coarsely chopped.

Mix the pesto into the boiled pasta of your choice. I usually use thin spaghetti or angel hair pasta. Chop up tomato and add it to the mix. Enjoy.

 

Seafood Pasta

Seafood Pasta

Seafood Pasta

Lobster claws

Lobster claws

Kristina found some lobster claws on sale, so I decided to make a seafood pasta, with a low-fat version of an Alfredo-style sauce. I added some tiger prawns we also had in the freezer, for variety. The following ingredients are just a guideline– use whatever seafood or vegetables you like (or whatever happens to be in your refrigerator). I almost went with asparagus tips instead of broccoli, but we had a lot of broccoli that needed using up.

 

Ingredients:

  • 4 Lobster claws
  • 20 Tiger prawns, with shells on
  • 1 Medium-sized onion
  • 6-10 Garlic cloves
  • 1/2-1 red pepper
  • About 1 cup broccoli
  • Fresh ground pepper
  • 1/2-1 tsp. Thyme
  • Juice from one lemon
  • Salt to taste
  • 1 Tbsp. Flour
  • 1 cup Shredded or grated Parmesan Reggiano or Pecorino Romano cheese
  • Olive oil

Serves 4

Lobster and Prawn Shells

Lobster and Prawn Shells for Stock

First remove the shells from the lobster claws and prawns, and put the shells in a small pan with some ground pepper, half of the garlic cloves coarsely chopped, and the thyme. Fill with water until the ingredients are covered, and simmer on the stove for an hour or more to make a seafood stock for the sauce.

While the seafood stock is being created, dice up the remaining garlic and cut the onions and red pepper into thin, 1-2″ long pieces. Cut the broccoli into bite-sized pieces.

Add a little olive oil to a wide, shallow pan on medium to high heat. Add the onions and green pepper and saute for a few minutes. Follow with the garlic and broccoli. You want to get the onions and pepper started cooking for a few minutes before you add the garlic, because it’s chopped more finely, and the broccoli, because it cooks faster. Add ground pepper to taste.

Prawns Added

Prawns added

Now add the prawns and start cooking on one side. Strain the seafood stock from the shells and add about 1/2 to 1 cup of it to the pan– the prawns should not quite be covered. Turn the prawns after a few minutes to cook on the other side. Add lemon juice. Mix the flour with a little water to make a paste, and stir it into the sauce to thicken it slightly (don’t add dry flour directly or it will turn into lumpy blobs). Add grated cheese and lobster (the lobster meat is already cooked, so we just want to warm it up- if you’re using uncooked lobster you’d add it the same time as the shrimp).

Serve on your favorite pasta and enjoy!