Pesto Love

My basil in the front garden is going crazy. I thinned it out, but it still looks nice and bushy. I made a fresh pesto pasta with chicken and tomatoes for a most delicious dinner. I always have a bag of boneless skinless chicken thighs in the freezer, it's one of my few quick-fix meal solutions these days. They add a kick of protein and they are done in about 1/2 an hour on my countertop grill. Minimum of heat added to the house, or this can be made at night when it's cooler and just heated up or eaten cold.

Fresh Pesto

2 cups packed fresh basil
1/4 cup parsley
1-2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup toasted walnuts
1/4 cup parmigano reggiano
3/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Put all ingredients except olive oil into a food processor or blender. Pulse briefly to chop the basil and then run on low as you drizzle the olive oil in until you get a smooth sauce.

Chicken Pesto Pasta

1# short pasta (penne or rotini work well)
1 recipe fresh pesto (about 1 cup)
1# cooked chicken, chopped
1/2 cup toasted walnut pieces
1 pint cherry tomatoes halved
Parmigano reggiano to taste

Toss all the ingredients in a large bowl. Eat, enjoy.

Summer Veggie Dinner

Belonging to a CSA brings many wonderful and delicious vegetables into my life. But it also brings with it the quandary of what the crap to do with all of these veggies (including any number that I have never cooked with before!). It also includes a surplus of those late summer curse, zucchini. Now I haven't ever resorted to trying sneak boxes of the stuff onto my neighbor's porches, but they do demand some creativity in the kitchen to avoid boredom. You can of course do the obligatory variations on zucchini bread, but you don't always see good recipes that celebrate the zucchini itself. So I went in search of something different and then tweaked it to make it all my own.

Zucchini Summer Bake:

You'll Need -
2 zucchini, sliced thinly
1/2 cup Jiffy (or other buttermilk baking) mix
1 small onion diced
1/2 cup Parmigano Reggiano, grated
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup olive oil
2 eggs
hot sauce to taste

Preheat oven to 350 f

In a medium mixing bowl mix the Jiffy mix, olive oil, eggs, salt, a couple good shakes of the hot sauce, and half the Parmigano and mix until you get a smooth texture. Mix in the diced onion and sliced zucchini until everything is coated. Spread evenly in a baking dish (I used a 9x9) and top with the remaining 1/4 cup of Parmigano. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until the top and edges are brown and the middle doesn't jiggle. Serve warm as a main dish or side dish.