Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Pine Nut Worship Pasta

This is a slightly more complex bit of cooking than last time, but it takes almost no skills cooking-wise and it is somewhat derived from a great recipe by Dave Lieberman, who is scandalously not available at my local library (I am going to see if I can change that). His has grape/cherry tomatoes sliced in half in place of peas, mine is more about pine nut worship (pine nuts being a main ingredient of pesto in the first place), thus the name.

Pine Nut Worship Pasta

Get some bowtie aka farfalle pasta and cook it; while doing so, get some pesto and put a good spoonful or so in a mixing bowl. While the pasta cooks (farfalle takes a little while) get some pine nuts* - a handful will do - and set them aside. Get the feta cheese out and either crumble it up a little or have it cubed up already (either by yourself or ready-made) at hand. When the pasta is almost done, cook your peas (again, a goodly handful here - more than the pine nuts) in whatever way you choose - I do it in the microwave.

When the pasta is done, drain it, make sure it is dry and then put it in the mixing bowl and start adding all the ingredients, making sure the pesto coats all the farfalle and the feta, peas and pine nuts are mixed in evenly. Serve immediately with grated parmesan on top.

*If you want something to do while waiting for the water to boil, toasting the nuts is a great idea. Just make sure they don't burn!

(If you wanted to make this more carnivore-friendly, which I understand, you could substitute the feta for pancetta or bacon.)

No comments:

Post a Comment