Friday, July 11, 2008

Spinach Pesto

So being a working dog owner makes cooking a little more difficult. I don't have the hours to study recipes, compare versions, hunt around Chinatown and Little Korea for ingredients, and then start cooking at 3 in the afternoon. The good news is that now I get paid to not write my dissertation. The other good news is that I have fortuitously made not one, not two, but THREE girlfriend-approved dinners this week in only 20-30 minutes each. This was made possible in large part by my new Oster blender-&-food-processor-in-one. Here's last night's Fortuitous Dinner, made with ingredients I found in my fridge:

Spinach Pesto

1/2 pound of baby spinach (it was about to become compost if we didn't eat it soon!)
1 generous squeeze of concentrated garlic mush in a tube (makes life so easy, kind of compares to fresh cloves)
tsp. or so of basil (we just had dried in our cabinet)
1/3 C. or so Parmesan cheese
a little drizzle of olive oil.
hot spaghettis
cooked shrimp, chicken, tofu--whatever you like

I used my food processor to chop the spinach to smithereens with a little olive oil to help the process. Mix in the basil, cheese, garlic. Toss pesto with hot spaghetti and top with protein source of choice. Garnish with fresh diced tomatoes. Oh my! That was EASY! (Then I said this little prayer: please don't let me turn into a less-skilled, more misanthropic version of Rachel Ray.)