Day 20: Quintessential Pesto with Linguine and Lynne's Retro Garlic Bread

I am glad I have been forcing myself to go to the gym as these recipes are not for the dainty!

Quintessential Pesto with Linguine
Lynne's Retro Garlic Bread

Basil is in season and I have been getting it in our farm share so I just keep on with the pesto! A friend just told me a trick the other day, make a double or triple batch of pesto but before adding the cheese, freeze half of it for another day. That was easy to do!

I will spare you the pesto part of the recipe as I covered it just a few posts ago, but the very interesting thing about this recipe is how they cooked their linguine.

Again, they said to start with a pound of linguine. Last time I did this, I had way too much pasta and not enough sauce. So I used a little over half a pound. Boil a gigantic pot of salted water. (Side note: tons of salt in your pasta water is essential. Do not worry about getting too much salt in your diet. The trick here is that the salt makes the water cook at a higher temperature and then your pasta will cook faster and have less chance of getting all gummy.)

When you toss the linguine in the water add 1 or 2 peeled, thin-sliced red potatoes and 1/2 lb or more of 1" slices of green beans. Then your veggies cook right with the pasta and the potatoes are creamy and no extra mess of an additional pan. RESERVE one half cup of pasta water before draining. Toss pasta and veggies with your pesto and add some of that reserved water to spread out the sauce.

This was a revelation for me. Why haven't I ever thought of this before? You can do this with lots of different veggies and then it is ready to toss with whatever sauce or flavorings you prefer.

Lynne's Retro Garlic Bread is a crowd pleaser. Split a baguette down the middle and separate the halves. Put them on a foil-lined baking sheet, face up. My baguette was so long and skinny I had to cut it into several pieces to all fit on the sheet. Set aside for now.

Turn oven to 400. In a saute pan, combine 3 T olive oil, 3 T butter, 1/4 cup water, 5 minced garlic cloves, dried basil and dried oregano, and salt and pepper. Set over VERY LOW heat. I used the olive oil here because the heat is kept medium-low to low the whole time. Gently cook, covered, for 10 minutes. when the garlic is soft, uncover and cook a few minutes more until all of the water is cooked out. Then divide on top of your baguette. Top with 1 cup shredded Asiago or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Cook in oven for 10 to 15 minutes until cheese is nice and bubbly. Serve immediately. Taste of the proverbial heaven.

Luckily I looked very carefully at the recipe before I started as, once again, the authors screwed up their given cooking times. In the book it says, 5 minutes prep, 15 minutes oven. But they forgot after 5 minutes prep, there is 10-12 minutes of stove time and then 15 minutes oven time. But I worked it all out and the pasta was just placed on our plates when I took the bread out of the oven. The bread was so good we ate the whole thing. Oh boy, do I need to get to the gym again tomorrow.....

40 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.