Pasta with Pesto

March 6, 2008 · by ·
The kid must have read my mind when I asked her what she wanted for dinner on the ride home from school. I was overjoyed when her response was “green noodles.” This is 6-year-old speak for pasta with pesto. Next to pasta aglio e olio, pesto is my favorite pasta pair-up. As luck would have it, I had just bought a nice bunch of basil during my lunchtime trek through Chelsea Market.It was extra special to have two miniature assistants to help with the dinner cook-up. Pesto is super easy to make with your food processor. A plate of pasta and a nice salad on the side and you are good for the night.

Pesto
Ingredients:
  • 1 cup basil
  • 4 garlic cloves
  • 1/3 – 1/2 cup of toasted pine nuts
  • 1/2 cup of parmesean (I leave mine out usually to make a pareve pesto, then add parmesean as necessary on a per meal basis) Do not use the powdered processed stuff in a can
  • 1/2 cup of good quality olive oil
  • a sprinkle of salt to taste

Directions:

Wash and sort your basil. Basil is often dirty and sandy.

Combine the dry ingredients in the food processor, then slowly add the olive oil. Dip finger in and taste. Add salt if necessary.

Pesto freezes well. I like to freeze in 1/2 cup increments.

 

Spoon pesto over and mix into pasta. I add a sprinkle of pine nuts and shredded parmesean. Enjoy with a side salad. Bon Appetit!

 

Filed Under: Dinner, Main Course, pasta, Vegetarian · Tagged: , , , , ,

Eat your heart out Rachael Ray!

March 4, 2008 · by ·

When I come home from work around 5:30pm, my older daughter needed dinner 30 minutes prior. She is at the point that if she doesn’t get some dinner, I feel like she may self combust. So I need to get creative. She is also very picky. I find myself preparing two different dinners many nights, but strangely enough, I am ok with that. I don’t have time for tantrums. I want my daughter to eat healthfully, with minimal outbursts at that crazy hour. So I have under a half hour to prepare a couple meals…

This Monday evening, I gave the Princess her choice of a homemade pizza princess sized or the pan fried tilapia, rice, and zucchini that J and I would enjoy. No surprise – she opted for pizza. I like to always have some pizza dough ready to go. Trader Joes has good prepared dough in the refrigerated section, but pizza dough is very easy to make.

I like the following quick recipe, which freezes well in whatever portions you may need:

2 cups of flour
1 tablespoon of yeast
1 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of sugar
A couple tablespoons of olive oil
2/3 of a cup of warm water
Mix your ingredients together, slowly adding flour until you get the right consistency. Let the dough ball rest 5-10 minutes, before forming it into pizza crust.
I spread the dough into a 5-8” round for a personal size. If you have a pizza stone, that is great, use that. I don’t. I put the dough onto a pan that is sprayed with some olive oil spray. I wipe olive oil on the dough. Add a small amount of sauce. Add a generous amount of mozzarella cheese. Don’t be too generous with the cheese or the pizza can fall apart. We are more adventurous with adult pizzas.
The pizza was served with a healthy portion of grape tomatoes.
In a magic world, my menus would be planned for the week every Sunday…and the meals would all come together easily each evening. Reality is such that each morning around 11am, I call J at work and ask him what he suggests I make for dinner. Usually his response is, “Whatever is easy for you.” I hate that response – I need ideas. This time, he requested fried tilapia and “crunchy rice.” Crunchy rice is Persian style Basmati rice made with a nice tahdig crust.
I dipped the tilapia in an egg wash, and dipped them in bread crumbs and lightly pan fried.
I sliced up some zucchini, baby bella mushrooms, garlic, some lemon zest, salt, and grated pepper – sautéed up that mixture.
Dinner is served.

Pizza, fish, rice, veggies, and baby food were ready to go in a half hour. Eat your heart out Rachael Ray!
Filed Under: Uncategorized ·

Country White Bread

March 3, 2008 · by ·

My 6-year-old daughter will only consider sandwiches as her main dish in her school lunches. The options she allows are a choice of peanut butter, cream cheese, egg salad, or chummus sandwiches. The sandwich must be on a softer variety of a whitish bread. We ran out of sandwich bread on Thursday. When I went to the store to do my pre-shabbat shopping, they were all out of any acceptable sandwich bread. I was a bit stuck in the nice-mom lunch category. So I decided I would give a shot at sandwich bread making.

I just landed a new Bosch Mixer – twice the capacity of my trusty kitchenaid. So, despite my lack of baking history, I was gifted with some baking confidence that came in the form of a 700 watt mixer. Did I mention my love for kitchen appliances? So I went about my search for a sandwich bread with ingredients on hand.

I came up with this Country White Bread. It looked easy enough. It was pareve. I had all the ingredients..and it promised two nice size loaves.

I have to admit. I was impressed with the Bosch. It took 5 minutes to do all the mixing and kneading for this recipe.

The loaves came out beautifully. I sliced up the loaves and put them in the freezer. The princess was pleased.

 

Filed Under: baked, bread · Tagged: , ,

Welcome

March 2, 2008 · by ·

Welcome to my new blog! I have always wanted to have a cooking blog. I have just procrastinated a bit. I always had a hard time with a title for the blog. The title came to me as I was posting an introduction on www.thefreshloaf.com. This title seems very fitting for me. My cooking is across the board, and I am pretty adventurous with exception to baking, which, aside from challah, is usually a brownie mix ala Betty Crocker (shame, shame).

I would like this blog to be some sort of accountability blog in my daily cooking. I may not post daily..but I would like to be held accountable for cooking daily. I keep a kosher home and I try to stay on a budget. I don’t like to feed my kids too many fishsticks or mac n’ cheese boxes – even if they prefer it. So grab a seat and stay for a bit while I get on with the blog.

P.S. I promise to post pretty pictures of my creations

Filed Under: Ramblings · Tagged: , ,
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