Another Spring-like endeavor! And I think that Pea Pesto might be my favorite new type of pesto. It is light and refreshing and can be used cold as a spread as in this application, or used on pasta in a warm dish. This open-faced sandwich can be dressed up with the addition of cherry tomatoes too. Yum!
Random Story: Back in the day, when I lived in Seattle, Ben had a colleague from Iran (via Canada). When he found out that I was German, the very first thing that he said was “Oh, she must make great quiche!” This confused the heck out of me at the time because apparently Germans are great quiche bakers and I didn’t even know it. Turns out that I have no idea where he got this perception, but nevertheless to this day, I think of him whenever I make a quiche.
After the success (and deliciousness) of the Homemade Spinach Pasta that I made earlier this month, I decided to have another go at it and made this absolutely amazing Roasted Red Pepper Fettuccine. It is seriously delicious, if I do say so myself. Unlike dried pastas that should taste like roasted red peppers but never really does, these actually do in a nice mild, smokey kind of way. The dish on the right pairs the pasta with more sweet bell peppers and pan-seared sea scallops (no recipe). Positively delightful and wonderfully colorful.
Tomorrow is Maudy Thursday, the Thursday before Easter. In Germany, Maudy Thursday is called Gründonnerstag which translates as Green Thursday (it also has a bunch of other names and I am not going to write a whole bit about the misnomer and history of why it is called Green Thursday … you’re here to read about food, not religion, right? Also, I am not Catholic. So there.) Anyway, one of the traditions is to each green food on Green Thursday, so I went about making Spinach pasta from scratch. I love homemade pasta. It is about a million times better than any dried pasta and really doesn’t take all that much effort. My pasta machine (one of those old fashioned hand-crank ones, though eventually I might get the attachment for my Kitchenaid) is one of the very first kitchen “appliances” that I ever received (back when I was in my early 20s?) and even though I don’t go through the effort all that often, it is always worth it.
I didn’t write a recipe for the finished dish pictured here, but in a nutshell, it is diced ham, frozen peas, a few tablespoons of cream and a liberal sprinkling of grated Parmesan, in a pan for about 3 minutes … exactly the amount of time that it tastes for the pasta to boil.