Last night we had a friend over and had pasta with pesto for dinner. It was, I must say, absolutely wonderful.
I made a spicy and a mild version.
First, I made the pesto. Mmmmm, pesto.
Then I cut up the sausage and started cooking it. The one in front is chipotle sausage; in the back is spinach/fontina/something (pine nut?) sausage:
While the sausage was cooking, I prepped the vegetables. First, the yummy rainbow chard. Isn't it pretty?
Vegetables are prepped and ready to go. On the left is the Swiss chard. Next to that are the Hatch green chiles that I wasn't finished cutting up, next are the roasted red peppers and Hatch green chiles ready for the spicy pan, and on the far right are the roasted red peppers for the mild pan. The bowl just has the skins I peeled off of the chiles, and look at all those seeds I took out!
(Side note to fellow coffee snobs: The Maxwell House can is there because we recently went on vacation for the weekend and forgot to bring coffee. I told my dad to pick up the most expensive thing the store had, and that's what he came back with. That's what you get in a small town. I can't bring myself to drink any more of it, but I'm saving it because it's a good can. I'll eventually give in and just dump it out I'm sure...or, I just realized I can use it for compost. Yay!)
Anyway, when the sausage was almost done, I added in the Swiss chard and covered it with a lid to help it steam a bit. When it was almost done, I added in some pine nuts, the peppers and chiles, and some sun dried tomatoes and stirred until those items were warmed. Then I dumped the whole thing over the pasta, and added the pesto on top. I actually made two batches of pesto, but as one who can eat pesto with a spoon, I ended up using it all instead of saving half, anyway. Yay, pesto! The mild version is on the left, and the spicy on the right.
Finally the table, with the bread and wine our friend brought. The bread was a wonderful sourdough; our friend said the bakery was out of the rustic loaf style, so he had to get the sandwich loaf. It was still very tasty! I don't know much about wine, other than if it tastes good or not (this one did!), but our friend does (which is why it's his job to pick out the wine :) ). This is an Australian wine, GSM, and is a mix of grenache, syrah, and mourvedre (imagine an accent over the first e in the last word). It was delish and went very well with the pasta.
Not the best picture, as I was in a hurry to snap it before the vultures descended on the food. Anyway, here goes:
I meant to pair this with a salad, but forgot about it until the last minute. I could have whipped one up, but the boys said "salad? We don't need no stinking salad!" And we really didn't. There was plenty of food for all (and plenty of leftovers are now waiting for me in my fridge).
