Well, I’m running a little late with my posting, due to surgery last week. I am on the mend, but still need to take it slow. Which means I can’t go down to my studio to work on my jewelry, as my doctor has forbidden stairs for several weeks. I am recovered enough to be bored out of my mind, but not enough to be able to do anything substantial.
So here is a recipe I cooked for my Cooking Italy group, but never had time to post before I went in for surgery. As you may recall, Cooking Italy is a group dedicated to creating the recipes in Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. If you are a fan of Italian food, I highly recommend buying this book and joining our group! Angela, over at Spinach Tiger is our Cooking Italy host and leader and she has a blogroll of everyone participating in this endeavor.
This dish is a pasta, potato, green bean dish with a pesto dressing. You can find the recipe on Angela’s blog. This was a simple recipe to put together. I couldn’t find new potatoes, so I used Yukon Gold potatoes which added a sweetness to the dish. New potatoes tend to have less starch and hold their shape better, but the Yukons, a medium starch potato, performed admirably, with slices that remained intact.
My big problem was with the pesto. Due to our very wet June/July, my potted basil plants still look very small and sad. I could barely get a cup of leaves, for this recipe that requires two packed cups. I halved the pesto recipe and worked with what I had. I actually liked the dish with less pesto, as the flavor of the green beans had a chance to shine through and I felt the pasta and potatoes absorbed enough pesto for a really fresh taste. However my husband, a big fan of pesto, would have preferred that second cup and found the pesto flavor too mild. My family’s final verdict - everyone loved the Pasta and Pesto with Potatoes and Green Beans. As my husband said – “Carbs and carbs – what’s not to like?”
As an aside, today I read a very interesting article in the NY Times, Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch. Seems people nowadays are more interested in watching food shows on TV, than in cooking for themselves. A very thoughtful article on where this is taking us, as a country.
