Tonight I decided to go back to roots. My grandfather's family is from Palermo, Sicily and I am very proud of my Italian heritage. I have always loved Italian meals from my mom's homemade noodles to Olive Garden. If it's pasta, I love it.
Sometimes I forget how much I really love Italian food. I always tell people my favorite food is Mexican or Thai or something exotic, but it's honestly Italian. I get scared admitting that because it sounds so simple, but it is. Italian food is simply the best.
I wanted to make three things tonight that included some protein, starches and a healthy vegetable. I remembered the pesto salmon that I always get at Buca di Beppo and thought I would give that a try. I stopped at Trader Joe's to buy some salmon, but I saw a premarinated chicken breast called "Pesto Genovese." Perfect, I thought. I have had all of their premarinated steaks and chicken breasts and have always been blown away by how good they are.
When I got home, I looked in the corner that I store my pasta and found a box of orzo. I also had asparagus that I planned on steaming. When I steam asparagus, I always throw fresh ground garlic and basil on top when it's finished. It gives it an "Italian" flavor, but I prepare it this way regardless of what ethnicity I'm going for.
Finally, when everything was near completion, I made my homemade pesto sauce. I always shoot from the hip when I make pesto sauce. I'm sure educated food connoisseurs could say something about the mood that I'm in if they tried my pesto sauce on different occasions. Probably like wine, there is a lot behind the scenes that goes into each bottle. Same goes for pesto sauce.
I didn't have any direction when I started, but I knew I wanted it to be creamy. I put some extra virgin olive oil in a frying pan and added a tablespoon of butter and some whole milk. Tonight I cheated because I used a traditional basil and pesto spread that already had the pine nuts, basil, oregano, garlic and Romano cheese. I mixed everything together and poured it over the orzo and asparagus. It was delicious!
Music: Bethany Dillon - A Voice Calling Out
Hey Kevin - I just found your blog. Very cool! I love making home-made pesto. We grew a ton of basil in our backyard this past summer just so I could have a ton of it to make pesto with and then freeze! Here's a recipe that you can use your pesto with that is super easy, and really good. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Penne-with-Chicken-and-Pesto/Detail.aspx. Even our kids love this. The only change I make is instead of cutting the chicken into strips I cut it into bite size pieces so it's easy for the kids to eat. You should try it sometime. We love it!
ReplyDelete~Amy