Week 4 Creations: Pesto, Breakfast, Salad & Surf n' Turf

This week has started off with a bang of deliciousness.

First, the basil pesto.

I have several basil plants on my deck that grew into a mini jungle while I was away house sitting last week. So first thing on my list of food to-do this week was pesto.

I picked about 3 cups of beautiful basil leaves, both green and purple.

Then I found some nuts, a crucial component of pesto. Pine nuts is the typical choice, but I had walnuts. Just as good!

Then, as usual, I just sort of winged it with some key ingredients. Lots of olive oil, a whole lemon, 3 large cloves of garlic, a little balsamic and some chard from the previous weeks CSA that had gotten just a tad wilted but blended beautifully into this mixture.

To that I added a healthy amount of Parmesan cheese, black pepper and the Not Just Salt that I purchased from Greenhill Collective Farm.

And I blended it all until smooth.

One jar for me, one for my mom. Such a nice daughter thing to do, and so easy!

You can do so many things with pesto. Mix it with pasta, have it with crackers and cheese as a snack, put it on sandwiches... there really is no limit. And you can also make many different kinds of pesto, not just basil pesto. I'd say go ahead and use any herbs or greens that you have in abundance -from arugula and parsley to dandelion greens and cilantro, or a mixture of them all!.


Next, for breakfast I created one tasty breakfast sandwich, I must say. And it all began with a smear of my pesto!

To that I added arugula (organic but store bought...I didn't get any in my CSA share this week, bummer!), grated CSA beet and a little salt and pepper.

Then a little Gorgonzola cheese, an over easy local egg and lots of sriracha. No meat required!
It was flavorful and satisfying.

Then, for lunch... a salad! I started with a bed of chopped CSA head lettuce and some arugula. Then CSA beets, scallions and broccoli. A little tomato, parsley and Gorgonzola to top it off, and dressed with olive oil, balsamic and lemon. Easy and tasty! And I felt like a million bucks after eating. You really can't beet a salad. 

And finally, for dinner, some surf n' turf. Definitely out of my comfort zone, but it went pretty well.

First, we had leftover lobster from when we splurged over the 4th of July holiday like very stereotypical Americans (poor lobsters, I know I still feel guilty). So I turned it into some lobster salad. The ingredients: CSA grated beet, scallion, garlic scapes (from last week, still good!), and radish. Parsley, a little mayo, half a lemon, Not just salt, pepper, and sriracha. Turned out great.

Then we had a some tenderloin that my folks gave us from their share of beef that they bought locally from a friend. Very good stuff (and I wanted to treat my man to some meat, although real men don't need to eat meat. Real men eat salads. And mine says he never even misses meat when I cook for him, so he's definitely a keeper).

For plating, I made a bed of CSA head lettuce, a little arugula and some tomato with a drizzle of olive oil, balsamic and lemon for dressing. A scoop of lobster salad and a few slices of tenderloin, all topped with Gorgonzola cheese and cracked black pepper. Pretty yummy!

Good eats!