Chicken Pesto Pasta

 

This crowd pleasing pasta was a landmark feat for SP for, after years of despising pesto since my last pregnancy, getting me to not only try but also love this dish. SP glowed when he last made it and I took seconds. The pasta cooked in the broth is the best part and I may never cook pasta in water again! I recommend prepping your ingredients in advance of starting the process.

Ingredients

1.5 pounds chicken breasts, cut into cubes and tossed with salt and pepper

1 large head broccoli, cut into florets

1 box gemelli pasta

4 cups chicken broth

2 cups pesto

Process

1. Saute chicken in a large skillet. Remove from pan.

2. Put pasta and broth in the pan and cook until al dente (add water if necessary)

3. While pasta cooks, microwave the broccoli with a little water to soften.

4. When pasta is ready, add the chicken, broccoli and pesto, stirring to combine.

5. Cook a little while longer and if necessary add a little more broth to keep it saucy!

Enjoy!

Watercress Pesto

Watercress Pesto




From The Bite House

Ingredients

• 1 cup pecans (or walnuts)
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
• 2 cups packed watercress
• 1 1/2 cup grated parmesan
• 3/4 cup olive oil
• juice of one lemon
• 3 garlic cloves
• salt + ground black pepper
Dry toast the nuts and seeds in a pan, shaking, until they’re ready.
In a food processor, whizz the nuts and seeds until finely shredded.
Add all the other ingredients, and whizz again.
Season with salt and pepper and adjust to desired consistency with olive oil.
Serve with fresh bread.

Awesomesauce Bruschetta

In preparation for Winter storm Nemo, I did some creative menu planning. Creative isn't a strong enough word because I set my mind on a bizarre idea of watercress pesto. Yes watercress pesto - and low and behold I found this awesome recipe from a great new blog The Bite House to follow.This recipe is entirely local because I also used Sister's Salsa from Blue Hill and a wonderful raw milk local cheese. The Silver Ridge Tomme is a raw goats milk cheese from Sonnental Dairy I found recently at The Good Life Market. Sonnental Dairy doesn't seem to have a website but they are a part of the Maine Cheese Guild. The tomme was a perfect addition for this cornucopia of tastes - hence the name Awesomesauce Bruschetta.





















Ingredients
Baguette - sliced on a diagonal
Watercress pesto
1 container Sisters Salsa
Shredded cheese to melt on top

Directions
1. Slice baguette on a diagonal, place on baking dish, and put a little olive oil on it.

2. Toast the bread slightly under the broiler.

3. Assemble the bruschetta first the pesto (sorry for the blurry picture) and then the salsa.

4. Top with melted cheese

5. Put under the broiler, turning the pan a couple of times so that they all get equal share of the broiler flames. Keep an eye on it and take it out then the cheese is melted. Yummy!

Rigatoni with Cheesy Pesto

I made this for dinner last night, thanks to Egg Basket getting me hooked on a new blog, Bake at 350. HERE is a direct link to their recipe. (photo credit to Bake at 350). This recipe is found under their Savory section. My meal looked a bit different. I served it with a side of iceberg wedges and I also added two shredded chicken breasts as well as an extra dollop of cream cheese to make up for the addition. It is yummy! And of course, the kids loved it. I highly recommend it.

Baked Eggs with Basil Mint Pesto

This was amazing! I made it for dinner. Two nights in a row. I made it for breakfast, with only one egg, for Daughter and Baby. They loved it. They demolished it.

The unique pesto, made from mint and basil in the garden, spread on top of goat cheese, is so wonderfully aromatic and flavorful. It was also a wonderful use of baguette remnants from the weekend. I think the best part was using the last of the beautiful Windy Hill Farm eggs we bought at the New Gloucester Village Store on the way home from SP's office.

The caught my eye immediately in this book that my mother-in-law gave me for my birthday! I adore it.

Oh my gosh! Janice Cole has a blog! Yea! I am too excited to learn more about her now, so I am NOT taking time to put up this recipe!

LOVE!

Janice Cole's Three Swingin' Chicks!

Fresh Basil Pesto

We put the garden to bed this weekend.
There was a giant purple crate full of pesto to process.
Sadly, none of the canning books we own had a recipe in it because of the cheese and pine nuts that are in it. It's not recommended to freeze pesto because of the fats and the changes in consistency. We however are not afraid of making pesto cubes in the freezer. We plow through pesto in our house. So I looked in the Joy of Cooking and found a recipe with the hearty idea of add vegetables to cook with the pasta. I'll have to try that sometime, but last night we needed to pound our the pesto fast. We settled on preparing Jamie Oliver's recipe from The Naked Chef.















I'm not even going to post a recipe in this post, because truly, what ever pesto you choose to make (we used our food processor and do like using lemon juice) you will undoubtedly tweak and add to it before serving. So, go harvest and pick your basil and find a pesto recipe today! Enjoy for longer than they tell you you can!
























Action shot!
(notice dehydrator in the back ground - had fresh dried herbs on the garlic bread with dinner)
Spread and press pesto into ice cube trays.
Cover and set in freezer.
















Once frozen through, crack the cubes out of the tray, air tight seal them in a new bag and place back in the freezer.

Pizza Night

First you make your dough in a dough machine then you just follow the steps along the way. It really is quite easy... you just need to keep practicing and reinventing your toppings!





































































































































The toppings in these pizzas, in order, are:
crumbled goat meat sausage with sauce and cheese
Sliced potatoes with cheese
And pesto and potato with cheese.