when you make something that has only 4 ingredients, that all get crushed together, with no heat applied whatsoever, what can possibly make your dish stand apart?

using pesto in your cooking, if only on occasion – is pretty much obligatory. it’s a flavor bomb. a crowd pleaser. pesto works on nearly everything one might imagine. we all like it. we all make it.

and i am here to tell you why mine is better…

1. olive oil – use ligurian. why? ligurian olive oil is not looking to overpower. it is light and fruity, unlike the more powerful tuscan and sicilian oils – and if you use a stronger, heavier, spicier oil, it’ll kill the flavor of your pesto. better to buy the light bertolli from your supermarket that tastes neutral. come to think of it, a spanish oil might work well here due to the gentler, buttery nature of those olives. regardless – think light. or just pick up some ligurian oil.

2. basil – fresh from the garden, picked minutes before using and soaked in water for a few minutes – otherwise it is too strong.

3. pine nuts – mediterranean. not chinese. these are long and slender. not the squat triangular version. they are lower in fat and higher in flavor. and they’re hard to find. and wildly expensive. but then, you’ve come to expect this of me…

4. cheese – i use mostly parmigiano, sometimes mixed with a little pecorino

this time around, i didn’t use a mortar and pestle, but i wish i had, if only to get the creamier texture. and i added some garlic – although not too much – that this saturday when i make it again, i won’t. and the pasta, the shape is called casareccia – a curving twisted tube that holds the pesto beautifully. although it’s a stellar italian dried pasta, this will be replaced with freshly home-rolled thin sheets made with a blend of ap flour, 00 flour, seriously farm fresh eggs and white wine.

the black tomatoes bought at my local farmers market the day before, were roughly chopped and thrown in raw, right on top. the pesto was thinned with some of the hot pasta water and then it all got tossed together. i regret not taking an ‘after’ shot. this dish is my kind of rustic, beautiful food.

all in all it was a perfect lunch on a sunday summer afternoon, accompanied by a wonderful bastianich rosé.

but this coming saturday night’s pesto? it might just kick this one’s proverbial ass.

stay tuned…

(the perfect pesto) <— for your viewing pleasure

or maybe it’s not a pesto. i’m really not quite sure as there’s no cheese or nuts in this first version although in the second dish, both of those are added in a non-classical way. but regardless, i came home one afternoon last week and once again decided to cook by what needed ‘to go’. a very large container of baby spinach was still looking good, but 8 days after purchase, needed to be used. so that was the basis for what then became 2 fabulous dinners.

i’m on a mission to make a dent in what currently exists in my kitchen, as i’m wondering if the over abundance of food is acting as a sort of psychological stronghold, protecting everything from my safety to my image. so it’s time to lighten the freezer load, use some of the pricey condiments i’ve collected – and take cues from my voluptuous pantry. it’s springtime after all… and there’s nothing like a good purge.

i just find this to be beyond gorgeous…

the day before, i’d taken all of 15 minutes out of my life to reorganize my sizable freezer. seriously, it took only a mere 15 minutes and it shed a lot of light on what we’ll be eating these coming weeks. but for this dish i grabbed the 1/3 of a bag of frozen peas, a little ziplock of my fresh breadcrumbs and the very last bit of chris’s guanciale.

from the fridge came basil leaves – also needing an immediate purpose, peeled garlic cloves (thank you bittman) and the expensive bottle of verjus that was bought 2 years ago and barely used. luckily, it keeps…

into the processor went the spinach, peas (still frozen) and garlic. i used some ligurian olive oil but tried to keep it light, drizzling in the verjus for both a brightness aspect and the needed liquid. salt and pepper were added, the breadcrumbs were folded in by hand and salted water was put on to boil.

i diced up the little piece of guanciale, threw it in a pan until it rendered its fat and browned slightly. the "pesto" was then added along with some pasta water to loosen. the pasta was cooked and drained. simple.

but can we talk about these noodles? because for those of you that missed it – you need to have a look here. in a blind taste test, new york magazine had three top italian chefs and one ‘eater’ judge 8 brands of spaghetti. trader joe’s pasta, the inexpensive underdog came in first among some pretty surprising contenders. the very close second is the brand that i mail order on a regular basis and is 8x the price. and now i think we all know what i’ll be buying from here on in. the pasta pictured above is tj’s and it was just excellent in every way. who knew?

and then there was this dish…

lesley came for dinner the next night. she’s one of those incorruptible vegetarians. no pork for lesley. so out came the little grape tomatoes i’d bought that day, pignoli’s from the freezer and what was left of some 2 week old fontina cheese. the pasta, lazzaroli’s red pepper linguine, had been in my freezer for easily 6 months (and still in excellent condition) and would fit in just perfectly. while the water heated, pignoli’s were thrown in a pan until they took on a bit of color, the spinach pesto base was added along with the tomatoes, now sliced in half. when the pasta was cooked i took some of the liquid and added that to the pan, the linguine went in and everything was tossed together. fontina was added and – dinner.

pesto, schmesto – whatever it was, it was all wonderful…

yesterday was busy.  and i’m used to things being pretty cruisy.  cruisy means you do what you want, when you want and just about anything can get put off for another day.  all plans stay flexible and i never ever leave the house before 11 am.  please don’t hate me cause i’m cruisy…

but yesterday was busy.  and i’m not wired for busy – yet.  but i’m an adaptable kinda gal and i’ll ease into this.  because i’m in for a lively period coming up here.  with deadlines.  DEADlines.  just the mere word is enough to scare the bejeezus out of you.

so yesterday at 4:30 i’m in the middle of ‘whole foods’ trying to decide what i’m making for dinner.  my kid and her kid were coming over and i wanted to make her something she’d love.  i remembered the cheese cavatelli from lazzaroli’s in my freezer along with the leftover pesto from the summer and i figured i could whip up a vodka sauce pretty quickly.

i had a can of san marzano crushed tomatoes so i grabbed that from the pantry, lightly sauteed some garlic in some olive oil added a pinch of salt and the tomatoes and let it cook for a few minutes.  then i added a few glugs of vodka, cooked that down and then some cream.  done.  easy.  fast.  perfect! 

vodka sauce is a debatable issue among the foodie crowd.  some say it’s nothing more than a gimmick that came about from a marketing campaign to sell more vodka back in the 70′s.  others say that frank sinatra invented it.  but after a bit of googling i read that the vodka is used to release the acids and flavor in the sauce and also to enhance the sweetness of the cream.  and even if vodka doesn’t have much of a flavor on its own, when mixed with the other ingredients it acts as a flavor enhancer.  and i believe everything i read on the internet.  so i’m going with that.

the 5 year old got a chocolate cupcake with a colorful buttercream turkey on top.  it was a huge smash success, perhaps because i agreed for it to be his first course before his chef boyardee.  we’ve implemented the ’no vodka’ rule for the kid.  but that’s just us.

anyway, he was the designated driver.

people of the foodie blogosphere, i present to you – a mediocre photo of the perfect round festive finger food – and hey – get this… it was not ever really meant to exist.  you know, like some good version of the perfect storm.  due to what was circulating out there in kitchen land, it just happened to come together – just so…  and in stages.

now i realize it doesn’t look like much.  but let me tell you about this little fella and how he came to be…

when i was cooking for one, and before the days of ‘alone in the kitchen with an eggplant‘, i used to on occasion buy these luxurious looking deep purple shiny footballs.  and i’d pretty much do the first step below and call it dinner.  but what i am about to describe to you right here and now is both the bonafide and the virtual evolution of the little hors d’oeurve that could…  so put on your reading glasses and hold on tight.  wait, what’s that you say?  you’re only 30?  good gawd…

1. the eggplant – from my csa share – was small in stature, perhaps 8 inches long so the thinly sliced rounds were just the perfect size.  i put them on my large grill plate that stretches across 2 burners on my stove, as many as i could – lightly olive oiled and salted – and browned them.  that was good enough for me.  i begin eating.  magically delicious.

2. but half way through my eggplant, i realized that right in my fridge was the roasted tomato sauce that i’d made the day before from all the little red and yellow tomatoes – from my csa share - cut lengthwise and roasted in my oven at 250 for 2 hours with just some maldon salt and fresh pepper.  after they cooled i had put them in the vitamix along with some really good olive oil and a touch of sugar.  the flavor was shockingly good.  especially atop the eggplant rounds.

3. and just when there were maybe only 5 rounds of eggplant left, it hit me!  i had a primo batch of frozen pesto that i’d made awhile back.  not wanting to defrost all of it, i threw the ziplock in the microwave for about 20 seconds until the edge thawed slightly and i broke a chunk off with a knife.  and man was that a good idea…

it was an eggplant’s crowning glory.