pasta and pesto

I love pesto. It makes a great addition to many things, I love spreading it across lasagna sheets for a richer flavour. It's really easy to make, too. Lots of oil and whatever you like best, I like to make a basil and pine nut pesto but I'm looking forward to giving a sun-dried tomato pesto a go sometime soon. I know many people use a food processor for their pesto, but I prefer to use my mortar and pestle.

If you've never made it before it's easy, two handfuls of basil leaves, no stems, a whole lot of pine nuts, some pepper if you're in to that sort of thing and then gradually a whole lot of olive oil, until you're happy with the consistency (continuously pounding/processing).



For a warm summer evening, a little pesto tossed through some pasta is a quick, easy way to make dinner without sweltering in a tiny kitchen. For the pasta below I added about a half a cup of frozen peas to the pasta in the last minute or so of cooking, and wilted a handful of baby spinach by rinsing them in the colander and draining the pasta over the top of them. Quick rinse through, then back in the pot to toss the pesto through. The pesto was very creamy, I think it was the masses of oil I pounded in to it.



The only problem with pesto pasta for dinner is that I find it tends not to reheat so well the next day, so it's not great for taking to work.

no croutons required - a visual delight (and some potato salad)

I keep meaning to participate in No Croutons Required, a monthly food blogging event, but every month it's one thing or another. Last month I sulked that Johanna (from Green Gourmet Giraffe) beat me to blogging about laksa :P. The month before I decided I couldn't deal with fruit and salad, it being too cold. This month, however, I am totally here!

This month's theme for No Croutons Required is a festive, seasonal picture to bring a taste of Christmas!. Being Northern-hemisphere biased, the request included a wintery scene, to which I laugh.


zanchey at swanbourne

With the onset of the warm weather (37C, finally!), it was time for the first beach visit of the season. Sunday afternoon I packed up a potato salad, some sushi and some jam drops, rummaged around for my bathers and quick-dries, and we made a detour to the bottle-o before heading over to Swanbourne, about twenty minutes away from our house (and just north of Cottesloe).

We met up with Sheeba, Zanchey and Zanchey's dog Jackie, frolicked in the surf for a bit and got sand everywhere.

This is Zanchey's only beach trip for a whole month, as he heads off today to the wilds of deepest darkest England for Christmas, and do you know what England doesn't have? Beaches. I should have given him an extra jam drop to make up for it.


potato salad and tree

No recipe was required for this entry, but what is a photo of food without a recipe?

potato salad

This is a bit of a riff off Emmy's potato salad, which you can find here.

ingredients
four or five potatoes (skin on)
half a cup of rich stock (or half a cup of boiling water and a lot of stock powder, because you want the stock to be strong)
1 clove garlic, minced
about one eighth of a red onion, diced very finely
a handful of snow peas, chopped roughly
one quarter of a red capsicum, diced
salt and pepper
small handful of parsley and chives (well chopped)
a tiny bit of lemon juice
1 tps white wine vinegar

method
After scrubbing thoroughly, boil the potatoes, skin on, until cooked mostly through. Carefully but roughly dice, and combine with snow peas, onion and capsicum.

Mix together the vinegar, salt and pepper, stock, lemon and garlic. pour in to potatoes, add chives and parsley, and stir through. Leave the potatoes to soak in the stock mixture.