Penne with Cilantro Pesto
I’m excited to go pick up a new haul of veggies later today, but we were finishing up the last of last week’s batch yesterday. I’d been itching to try a cilantro pesto since feasting on some I picked up from the farmer’s market a few weeks back, and the inclusion of a huge bunch of the stuff definitely boded well for my taste buds. I had all the ingredients lying around already, so the cost was effectively nothing and it only took about 10 minutes to make.
Basically, I just put some penne on to boil. While that was going, I roughly chopped the cilantro (just so it’d fit in the blender better), tossed in a spoonful of minced garlic, half a cup of olive oil, and about 1/4 of a cup of almond slivers. Instant pesto! Belatedly, I remembed that I’d gotten some good parmesan from the farmer’s market over the weekend. I blended that separately, which didn’t work so well. The parmesan ended up in pebble-sized chunks, which didn’t look pretty but tasted just fine.
To go along with the pasta, we stir-fried a bag of spinach, some diced mushrooms, and a handfull of scallions. With flavors like that, who needs meat? I wonder why we didn’t think to cook that over the weekend while two vegetarian friends were in town…
