Pesto

I make out a weekly menu when I plan my trip to the grocery store.  Doing this helps me not to over buy and stick to a budget.  I also plan out the week’s lunches too, my daughter takes lunch to school with her 4 days a week and my husband usually takes leftovers.  I am pretty good about sticking to my weekly menu, but occasionally I don’t feel like cooking (it happens) and we pick up a pizza or go out to eat so I cook what I planned on making that night the next evening. 

Since my dinner plans were changed at the last minute yesterday, I decided to make for dinner tonight what I had planned on making yesterday.  It is just the kids and I tonight (hubby went to a class to make up for the one that was canceled last night) so I made some homemade pesto in my little manual food processor (love it, so easy to use and clean and isn’t a hassle to get out like my BIG electric one) for my creamy pesto sauce. 

If you have never made your own pesto you should really start, there are so many different things that you can use pesto for.  I always make more than I need so that I can keep it on hand.  Not only will I be using some in my pasta tonight, but I will be making a little extra pasta and mixing some Greek yogurt with pesto and making a little pasta salad for my daughter’s lunch for school tomorrow.  One of my favorite things about pesto is that it is all about your taste and what you have on hand.  Tonight I made a traditional pesto, but sometimes I don’t have pine nuts on hand so I use pecans instead.  I have also made pesto out of different herbs depending on what application I plan to use it in.

Here is my recipe for Homemade Pesto

1 bunch of fresh basil

4 garlic cloves

¼ cup of pine nuts, toasted

¼ cup of grated Parmesan cheese

olive oil

salt and pepper

Place basil leaves, garlic, toasted pine nuts, and Parmesan cheese in a food processor.  Blend with a little olive oil to get it going and then slowly drizzle in more olive to get the right consistency, it should be smooth but you should be able to see chunks of the pine nuts still.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

You can store unused pesto in the refrigerator be sure to cover the top of the pesto with olive oil so it doesn’t discolor.  Or you can freeze it (I do this at the end of the summer before my basil goes to seed), I sometimes freeze it in ice cube trays so that if I only need a little I don’t have to thaw out a ton.

Some of the different things that I use pesto for are:

Mix with mayo for a sandwich spread (great on turkey)

Add a little cream to it and cook for an easy pasta sauce

Add to cold pasta for a pasta salad

Use as a marinade for chicken on the grill

Use instead of pizza sauce on a pizza

Use as one layer of sauce in lasagna

Mix it with softened butter to make a compound butter to use on steak, fish, chicken or veggies

And this list could go on and on….

What are some of the different things that you use pesto on?  I would love to know.

Grilled Moroccan Spiced Chicken Breasts

My first blog….

I had originally planned on making a Pasta tonight for dinner since it was just going to be the kids and myself, but my husbands class was canceled tonight so he was home too.  I needed to figure out something to make for dinner that didn’t take too long to cook and with ingredients that I had on hand.  I had some boneless skinless chicken breasts, plain yogurt, a variety of fresh herbs, lettuce, and some pita bread.  So I found a recipe that looked great and didn’t take to long to make or prep.  I made Moroccan Spiced Grilled Chicken Breast and served it with a green salad (with a cilantro lime dressing), basmati rice and grilled pita bread.

Here is the recipe for the Moroccan Spiced Chicken Breasts it is an adaptation of one printed in the Sacramento Bee.

 

6 oz plain yogurt

2 cloves of garlic, pressed

1 ½ teaspoons each smoked paprika, cumin, ground coriander

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro

zest and juice from 1 lemon

salt and pepper

4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

In a bowl mix together all ingredient but chicken. Set aside about a ¼ cup of the yogurt mixture to brush onto chicken while it is grilling.  Add chicken to the marinade and let marinate for 20 minutes to 12 hours, the longer the chicken marinates the better the chicken will be seasoned.

Heat up grill to cook chicken.  Be sure to oil your grill or spray with cooking spray before you add the chicken.  Cook chicken about 8-10 minutes on each side brushing with the reserved yogurt sauce after turning.

My notes on the meal:  The chicken was yummy we stuffed it into the grilled pita and piled the salad and rice on top and ate it as a pita sandwich (that was my daughter’s idea). A couple changes that I will make next time I prepare this dish; first I will marinate it for at least 4-6 hours, and second I will use Greek yogurt to give it more of a tangy flavor.