July 12
Bread is Better When It's Breadcrumbs
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- Herbed Pasta with Walnuts and Beet Greens [View Recipe]
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Ingredients
- .5 pound pasta
- 2 tablespoons walnuts
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 cup herbs (cleaned)
- salt & pepper
- 4.5 tablespoons oil (divided)
- 6 cups beet greens (cleaned)
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- cheese (freshly grated)
- ricotta
- red pepper flakes
Instructions
We start cooking by putting a large pot of water on the stove and heating it for the pasta.
In the toaster oven, we put the walnuts on a piece of foil and toast at <temp val="350"/> for a few minutes. When we start to smell the nuts, we turn off the toaster oven and set the nuts aside to cool just for a couple of minutes.
Into the chopper attachment of our immersion blender, we add the nuts, garlic, the mix of herbs and 3 tablespoons of the oil. We blend and then pour the pesto into a ramekin. It is rather thick, so we add another tablespoon of oil and season with salt and pepper.
When the pasta water comes to a boil, we add some salt and the pasta, cooking until al dente.
Meanwhile, we chop the greens coarsely on our cutting board.
When the pasta is done, we save ¼ cup of the pasta cooking liquid, and drain the pasta in a colander.
We place the pot back on medium heat as we add the rest of the oil and the greens. We start wilting it down quickly, turning often with tongs, and add the reserved pasta cooking liquid. Finally, we add a little salt and pepper and turn off the heat.
We combine the pasta and the pesto in a large bowl. We toss to coat using tongs. We top each serving with some of the beet greens (they are not tossed with the pasta otherwise the pasta would be pink!), the oiled breadcrumbs, the two cheeses, and some red pepper flakes.
- Garlic Breadcrumbs [View Recipe]
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Ingredients
- .5 tablespoon oil
- 1 clove garlic
- .25 cup bread crumbs (plus more as needed)
- salt & pepper
Instructions
In a bowl, we combine the olive oil with the garlic clove, which is pressed through the garlic press. We heat in the microwave for 20-30 seconds. We want the garlic to become fragrant and the oil to heat. The bread crumbs are stirred in and seasoned with salt and pepper. We want the crumbs lightly coated with the garlic oil, so we add crumbs, as needed, to get the "right" consistency.
Leftover crumbs are covered with plastic and refrigerated.
The primary inspiration for this meal is the same behind most of our meals—a fanatical desire to use foodstuff before it spoils. This desire often inspires new recipes. Such is the case tonight.
Instead of a blue cheese that might be a more natural fit for tonight's pasta course, we use ricotta. The addition of several fresh herbs to the same pasta dish is owing to an over-abundance in our garden. "Waste not, want not" can certainly be tasty!
Another interesting item lying about in our pantry is rachette pasta, which looks like little tennis rackets. The tennis rackets just make the meal that more fun for the little ones—they're kids, they get a kick out of things like weird pasta shapes.
The baby woke up at 3 a.m. and cried for an hour. If she weren't so darn cute... ah who are we kidding? She is cute and is the baby, so she can get away with just about anything. Even so, we are tired, which makes this meal that much more comforting.