Asparagus Pesto Pasta with Sundried Tomatoes

This one was surely my pantry clean-off. I had a bunch of pencil asparagus in my refrigerator that I wanted to use in something other than making asparagus soup. I decided to go with pesto. Great thing I love about the pesto is, you really just toss a few basic ingredients in to the food processor and just grind them while adding olive oil in to it. It's simple and gives a lot of flavour and richness to your pasta.

The basic ingredients for making any pesto are:-

• Any herbs/ greens like basil, parsley,spinach, coriander/ cilantro
• Any kind of nuts like almonds, pistachios, walnuts, pine nuts
• Olive oil, cant make pesto without olive oil
• Garlic cloves- for the beautiful aroma
• Cheese- most of the times I use Parmesan just because pesto holds it better than any other cheese.
• Salt and pepper

I said it was my pantry clean off, so I used-:

• Asparagus - which was sitting in my refrigerator. A bunch of that.
• Walnuts- a handful of that.
• Sun dried tomatoes- I always have them on my hand, just because I like them. 4-5 numbers.
• Olive oil
• Garlic cloves- I can't imagine pasta without garlic...:) 2-3 big cloves
• Parmesan cheese- A half of a handful in pesto and rest of the half to top the pasta when it gets ready.
• Lumachine pasta - which is a salad pasta. I toss it in soups/ salads usually. This was the only one left in my pantry.

• Salt and pepper

I reserved a cup of a starchy water while I was cooking the pasta and added that to the pesto just to make the pesto a little bit thinner. This makes the pasta to get coated evenly when you mix it with pesto. You can certainly use vegetable stock/ chicken stock or just old plain water. Stock just gives it a little more taste.

Asparagus has tons of benefits to your health. Here are few links:-

Nutritional facts about asparagus

Everything about asparagus

Here is how I made my asparagus pesto:-

• I cut the asparagus in an inch or 2 inch pieces and added them in the boiling water for about3-4 minutes.
• Just when they were tender enough to grind, I would say half cooked, I turned off the heat drained them and kept aside.
• I toasted the walnuts in a pan for about 2/3 minutes, just so that they develop the flavour
• Then I added asparagus, walnuts, garlic cloves, Parmesan cheese( shredded/grated), salt and pepper.
• Just to give it a little citrus kick I added juice of half of a lemon and lemon zest.
• Grind them together while streaming in olive oil.

In a large pot with enough water, cook the lumachine pasta to Al-Dente. Reserve the starchy liquid to mix with pasta later and drain of the remaining.

Mix the starchy liquid with the pesto and toss it over the pasta, mix well so that pasta is coated well with the pesto.

I reserved my sun dried tomatoes to go in last, because I like them in a bite size pieces and not get mashed in the pesto. So chop them and add to the pasta with the remaining handful of Parmesan cheese.

Enjoy with a nice piece of rustic bread or just on it's own.

Homemade veggie pizza!!!

I decided to celebrate my first blogoversary with a homemade veggie pizza. I wanted to keep it simple and I am glad it turned out to be that way.

I was little worried about it. Initially I was thinking of buying a fresh pizza dough from my favourite pizzeria. In the mean time,I searched few recipes online, browsed through some videos and finally decided to make a homemade dough, just to make the whole experience more adventurous......:P

Pizza as we all know a great party food, kids love it too. Ultimate finger food to munch on. So let's not spend more time in discussions, let's just hop on to the recipe along with some step-by-step pictures.

Here is the list of ingredients I used:

1. 1 cup of whole wheat flour
2. 1 cup of all purpose flour
3. 1 package of Active dry yeast (I used FLEISCHMANN'S)
4. 1 teaspoon salt
5. 1/2 teaspoon sugar
6. 1 cup of very warm water
7. 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil ( I used extra virgin olive oil)

Here is how you make the dough:

• Take 1/4 of warm water in a bowl and add the yeast in to it. Stir the yeast well until dissolved.

Heads up: The temperature of the water is the key here. Too much hot water will kill the yeast and less than warm temperature will not yield any effect. The perfect temperature is 120° F to 130° F.

• Add the remaining 3/4 cup of water in the same bowl with the salt, olive oil and wheat as well as all purpose flour. Mix well. Use your hands to mix and knead the dough.

• Add some more flour if you want to make a soft dough.

• After making a soft dough keep it in the bowl and cover it with a wet towel.

• Keep it covered in a warn place. I kept the bowl over the stove top, that's the place where I usually keep my yogurt to set. Keep it for 60 minutes.
• Check after 60 minutes, the dough should have doubled in size.

• Punch the dough down , knead it for 3-4 minutes more, coat the dough with some Olive oil and keep it covered again for 30 minutes.

• Your dough should be ready in an hour and a half.

Easy right? Not very tough.

Now it's time to prepare the toppings for the pizza. You can really go crazy with the toppings. I love my pizza with all kinds of veggies in the world. One more reason I like homemade pizza is because I can through any veggies I like and I have on hand. When you go out to eat pizza or order a takeout, there are very limited choice of veggies available.

I made this with the following veggies:

• Broccoli
• Tomatoes
• Onions
• Asparagus
• Green bell pepper
• Red bell pepper
• Lots of zucchini.....I love it on pizza.

Last but not the least....CHEESE........mozerella. Parmesan will work fine too. I find mozzarella better because it melts well on the pizza.

Time to put everything together:

Set the oven to 475° F.

• On a pizza pan sprinkle some cornmeal/ flour . Place the dough on the pan and using your hands just spread the dough over the pan.

• Those who love thin crust, make two parts of the dough and take one to spread across. Thick crust lovers can use all the dough.
• After spreading the dough, apply the pizza sauce all over the base. I used ready made pizza sauce, you can also make it at home. There are plenty of recipes available online for that.

• Next comes the veggies. Spread over all of them on the pizza.

• Top the veggies with mozzarella cheese.

• Brush the edges of the base with extra virgin olive oil. This will give nice crunchy browned edges after the pizza is done.

• Slide the pizza in the preheated oven for about 35 minutes. Make sure that your base is cooked completely.

Pizza will be ready in about 35-to 40 minutes depending on the oven. You will know when the cheese starts to bubble and pizza will have a nice brown color just like this...

Something that I would do different next time-: When I checked my pizza after 35 minutes, I felt that my base wasn't cooked well, so I had to keep it for another 10 minutes or so. It turned out well, but I think it will be better if I prebake the crust next time, just for 5 minutes or so, that will make the pizza bake evenly.

What do you think? I would love to hear your experiences...:)

ohh and don't forget to grab a slice....

Enjoy!!

HHDD #24 Pesto- another entry for a round up!

This one is specially made for HHDD round up. Here is the link to the host and the facilitator.

Thank you for hosting this round up.

Sun-dried Tomato Pesto

I love to send my entries to these round ups. This one was simple to make. Pesto- is an Italian sauce, commonly used on a pasta. I love a basic basil pesto. For this round up, I will be trying something different.

I love making pasta with sun-dried tomatoes, garlic and olives. Simple yet hearty dish, with red wine, and some crusty french bread is a perfect weekend lunch for me and my hubby. 

I decided to go with the same ingredients, except olives (I didn't have those in my pantry this time and I didn't have time to go buy them as the clock was ticking for the deadline).

I like the flavour of basil, so I decided to add the basil as well. 

It just took me 10 minutes to make this pesto. (or should I say less then 10!!)

I used-:

Sun-dried tomatoes (out of the jar and their oil)

Fresh Basil Leaves

Garlic Cloves, salt and pepper

Blend everything together . Blend until the tomatoes are finely chopped. Transfer it to a bowl.

If you want to use it as a spread you can add some olive oil while blending. Otherwise, whatever oil sun-dried tomatoes have in the jar is enough.

As I said,You can use it as a spread over the bread, or toss in some cooked pasta and make it more delicious. 

I love to use this pesto as a dip with some corn chips or tostitos or with the pita chips.

Enjoy.....:)

A really simple pasta!!

Pasta is one of the dishes, I like to make anytime of the day. What I like most about pasta dish is it's so versatile, that you can really be creative and can make thousands of your own different versions. When I make pasta just for me and my hubby, I try to make it healthy by adding as much vegetables as I can, and by using wheat pasta. I live the variety of wheat pasta you get in Trader Joe's.
As a party menu, I go little beyond my healthy instincts and try to make everyone happy.

So here is one of the healthy kinds I make for just me and my hubby..:)

So you can use pasta of any shape you like. This time I used the one you get at Costco. It comes with a pack of 6 , 1LBS each. There is a combination of radiator and Fusilli or combination of other varieties.

I used radiator for this pasta.
I cooked pasta in a boiling water with some salt in it. If you are using less amount of sauce or a homemade sauce, then this is the only time to add salt to pasta, so that pasta can absorb the flavor. Cook the pasta until it reaches to al dente.
Before draining the pasta, keep a bowl of water aside, to make the sauce later.
Now drain the pasta and keep it aside.
While you are boiling the pasta you can work on sauce and and the vegetables you want to add in pasta.
I don't measure the quantity for making the pasta, usually half a pound pasta is enough for 2 people for a lunch or the dinner. I just eyeball the vegetables and the sauce. My experience tells me that it never goes wrong. There is nothing to go wrong in this delicious dish.

So cut onion, green beans, red bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, sweet pea pods and broccoli. Asparagus goes very well with pasta.
Chop all the vegetables.

Heat some olive oil in the pan. Add chopped garlic, around 2-3 cloves. Fry for a minute, and add onions. I use dried Italian seasoning. Sprinkle it on onions, mix well. Then add remaining vegetables one by one. After adding all the vegetables, add the water from pasta that we kept aside. What we want to do is, cook vegetables in such a way that it will maintain it's crunchiness.
So add about 1/4 cup of water and cover the pan with the lid until the vegetables are partially cooked. Now it's time to add sauce to the pasta.

This time I bought the pasta sauce from Costco. It's homemade style marinara with imported Italian plum tomatoes and Napa Valley Cabernet.

It's delicious. A perfect combination of wine and tomatoes in to your meal. Again while adding the sauce just eyeball it. I added about a cup and a half I guess. Mix the sauce well with all the vegetables, take some help from remaining pasta water. Now add your pasta to the pan. Make sure that your sauce coats the pasta very well. Keep it on medium flame for couple of minutes more, and add shredded Parmesan cheese. Turn off the heat and serve hot sprinkling some cheese on top.

As I said, a simple pasta recipe never goes wrong. So doesn't matter whether you are a master cook, or a beginner, or someone who likes to experiment just like me...:)
You can never go wrong with this dish.
It's the simplest and the healthiest.

You got to try this out.
Enjoy!!!


Coming Up:- Blueberry yogurt muffins