Being Italian, I love pasta. I could eat it every night for a week (and, admittedly, I have). In college, it got so bad that my nutrition major roommate started buying me wheat pasta since it was a “healthier alternative.”
Earlier this year when I read The Sky is Everywhere (still one of the best books I read in 2010 – AMAZING young adult novel), I bookmarked a page that had a recipe for pesto sauce. Remembering this, I quickly grabbed the book this past Monday and decided to test out my new culinary expertise.
Once again, a few problems came up. We don’t have a food processor, nor a mortar and pestle, so instead of grounding up and processing all of the ingredients, I simply mixed them (and instead of using fresh basil leaves, I used basil seasoning). Also, we didn’t have any pine nuts, but according to research, that was okay. (I looked up similar recipes online to ensure that I wasn’t going to mess it up too much without the nuts).
While Samir cooked the chicken, I boiled spaghetti and mixed the called-for pesto ingredients in a pot over extremely low heat. Since it was quite dry, I added a bit more olive oil and my favorite when-in-doubt ingredient – butter. It usually works for baking, so I figured it would work here.
In the end my pesto chicken and pasta wasn’t that bad! I made Pillsbury garlic bread to go with it (okay, we could have made this from scratch too, but come on, I was making my own pesto sauce), which was very fluffy and nice. It was a bit dry tasting, the pasta, not nearly as creamy as I would have liked, but still – it was my first attempt.
The next day, I microwaved some leftovers and added additional olive oil and butter. To my delight, it tasted even BETTER.
I still love pesto, so I’m excited to make this again. Maybe next time with a food processor – and the correct ingredients.
Tags: chicken, pasta, pesto, pesto chicken and pasta, the sky is everywhere
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