Pesto, Sunny Side Up

I love the things that are so easy to make it almost seems like a magic trick what comes out the other side of a few minutes and a few dollars.

We have eggs.  Have I mentioned that yet??  :)  And for me, working from home, an egg + _______ = the perfect lunch (even if the _______ is sometimes just a crackling of sea salt).

I still had a bit of chard pesto that I had thawed out from the freezer (easiest way to make something fancy as far as I’m concerned!  :)  Due to a confused moment of decision I ended up cooking some crumbled tofu (organic firm) in the small frying pan, with a little bit of Mama’s Miracle Dressing.  Towards the end of the cooking time (ten or fifteen minutes) I added in a spoonful of the pesto to get the gorgeous color without cooking any more freshness out of it, and set it aside to cook my sunny side up egg.

We had a few tomato slices left over from burgers with the folks the night before, which I put in the pan for a few minutes to soften them up and make them look more....deliberate than just setting them on the plate ;)  

When my egg was done (however soft you prefer your yolks to be) I nestled it into a bed of scrambled tofu and added a layer of pesto, a crackling of salt and a sprinkling of flaxseed, and snuggled the tomato slices on the side.

Yum, yum YUM!  :)

Pesto, Sunny Side Up

Approximate Price: $2

red pepper and chard pesto-less pasta with grilled eggplant

so pasta is just one of those things that you don’t realize is so much better it’s a small locally made batch....i mean, i love pasta already.  it’s one of my favorite things, but local pasta?  it’s above and beyond in ways that i couldn’t imagine before i had it.

we got spinach, basil & garlic fettucini from the farmers’ market and i couldn’t wait to come up with something delicious for dinner!  our poor garden finally surrendered to the cold nighttime temperatures, and after the first morning of waking up to sad, dark droop i harvested what i could from the tomatoes (hoping that with some tricks suggested by friends will ripen indoors :) and chard, which was already looking a little sad from absolute obliteration by caterpillar.  unfortunately the basil turned brown overnight so i didn’t have any for pesto, but i still had my eye on the chard for, well, pesto-less pesto :)

we also had some local red peppers and yellow onions, which i put on to saute with a li’l butter, and an eggplant (also loot from the farmers’ market), which i sliced lengthwise into pieces about a 1/2 inch thick.  i also put them in a lightly buttered frying pan on low, flipping them within five minutes or so to get some oil on the other side as well.  (it tends to soak up quickly.)

i prepped my chard, washing and removing the thickest part of the stems, and cutting it just once or twice to make it a bit easier to fit in the pot of boiling water.  i left them cooking for a bit longer than i would to serve them as greens, in order to make them more agreeable to a blender.  i removed the greens from the water with tongs, letting them carry some of the liquid with them, and put them in the blender, adding a quarter or so cup of olive oil, three cloves of chopped garlic and a half teaspoon-ish of salt, blending until smooth.  

the pasta instructions were to cook for six minutes, so they were saved until the end.  i used the chard water to cook them (why not?) and prepped a handful of cilantro.  (one might argue that cilantro doesn’t necessarily go with basil, but it wasn’t fresh basil....and i really like cilantro!)  

i drained the noodles in a colander and put them back in the pot with the lovely green sauce from the blender.  i served it onto the plate, with a big scoop of red peppers and onions, topped with cilantro and accompanied by tender slices of eggplant drizzled with Mama’s Miracle Dressing and sprinkled with flaxseed.  

red pepper and chard pesto-less pasta with grilled eggplant 

it was one of those dinners we didn’t say much over, other than how good it was!  (and how much it looked like christmas :)

approximate price: (i won’t lie, the pasta was pricey!) $12

(cheeseless!) eggplant pesto pizza

so will has been doing pretty darn good in the kitchen since i've been gone!  i've asked him to be a guest writer for the month, so hopefully for the next few weeks you'll be getting an archive from me and a recent creation from him :)  i'm so proud ;)

for now:

i was going to stop by the store after work to get cheese for pizza, but a seriously apocalyptic looking storm was coming in so we skipped it.  cheese free pizza: i’ve faced bigger challenges.

we got a few different kinds of eggplant in our farm share this week.  one that looked like what i’m used to, a couple that were long and slender in a lavender shade, and one sort of in the middle.  i chose that one, slicing it into circles about 1/3 inch thick.  (for anything other than pizza i make them a bit heftier but wanted these to be easily bitable.)  i put them on medium low in the large pan with a bit o’ butter.

now that i’m thinking about it i remember hearing that it’s good to have your pan already heated up when eggplant goes in, or else it will just soak up all of the oil.  (but maybe that’s ok!)

i got the idea to make pesto for the sauce, and braved the torrential rain for a few chard leaves (AND to check on the babies, whom i had closed up in their roost in preparation of the storm...mama was terrified, but i think they were more annoyed at being cooped up before twilight! :)  

while the chard was getting a few long minutes in boiling water i chopped up a good handful of basil, a big clove of garlic, and grated two small yellow zucchinis into the blender.  i thought it would thicken the sauce up (regardless of knowing that anything in the blender has to have a certain amount of liquid or it won’t work!  stubborn :)

i also began heating up (though hardly necessary, since it was going into the oven) the small amount of okra tomato bean leftovers.  i didn’t want the beans, but it was a package deal.

i added the chard, along with a bit of the water to the blender, and gave it a go, adding olive oil and liquid ‘til it would blend (also stirring it with a spoon between whirls).

between all this the eggplant received all sorts of tender flips, a splash of bragg’s, and about 1/3-1/2 cup of water to make sure it softened up properly (enough to have a small layer in the pan).

oven was preheated and onto the pizza went pesto, okra tomato bean stuff, and eggplant rounds, placed strategically to minimize needing to cut through them.  i cracked some salt over the top and sprinkled ground flaxseed, which really made it look beautiful!  very rustic ;)

(cheeseless!) eggplant pesto pizza

i confessed to will later that i kind of wish he had walked in on me earlier, as those beans i didn’t want on my pizza got eaten off one by one as soon as they were spread on it.  it was a silly moment :)

approximate price: $7  

chard pesto and spinach salad

WOAHHHHHHHH super cool!  we got a blender recently, to accommodate our delivery of tomatillos, which neither of us had any clue what to do with.  turns out you make salsa with them, and to do that properly you need a blender.  i was a little skeptical, as i couldn’t actually think of much else i would do with a blender......little did i know!  :)

our chard crop continues to be gargantuan and amazing, and i’m always on the lookout for yummy (easy :) things to do with it.  i had leftover noodles from a night i cooked a whole bag and then only used half with dinner, and i needed a sauce to put on them.

sauce.....chard.....blender.....

i boiled 6 or seven chard leaves for a few minutes (long enough that i would serve them at that consistency) and put them with a little of the water in the blender.  not a lot of water, i just kind of didn’t drain them very thoroughly.  then i chopped up a good handful of basil and a couple cloves of garlic and blended them for no more than ten seconds (i didn’t have to!) before they turned into a beautiful bright green sauce!  

voila!  i had put the noodles in my big frying pan with a little butter and bragg’s to get them warming up and poured the sauce straight in.  ohhhhhhh it was gorgeous and smelled soooooooo good!

a little fresh basil garnish and salad on the side.....

chard pesto and spinach salad

approximate price: $4