- Jan 8, 2007
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So, Sunday my wife's parents came over for dinner. Since her father is a bit of a bad ass when it comes to bbq/grilling, winning state awards over many years, I figured I'd avoid any kind of meat-heavy main dish. It was mighty tasty and was an overall successful occasion so I thought I'd share it with you silly bastards here.
After pondering a few ideas, greek stuffed chicken breasts or mexican taco meatloaf, I decided that I wanted to do something using a pesto sauce recipe that I found online. Specifically,
Fresh Basil Pesto Recipe | Simply Recipes
So, I used that basic recipe with fresh basil, double the parm cheese and walnuts and set aside.
I hate waiting for water to boil. However, I used the giant stockpot we had to get the medium penne noodles going. While waiting for that, I pan fried these links of Spinach and Asiago cheese chicken sausage links we bought from Sams. After draining the penne, I poured 1 cup of black olive juice back in with the noodles for a quick saute until the liquid was gone. I cut the sausages in quarters, longway, and then into inch-long pieces after they were done cooking; adding them to the noodles after. Once the olive juice cooked out I spooned in 90% of the pesto to the noodle-sausage concoction. The heat, on medium low, melted the parm enough for the pesto to adhere to the noodles and sausage deliciously. On presentation, I spooned in a healthy serving and added a dusting of feta and freshly diced tomatoes and some of the sliced olives mentioned earlier.
Over on the second burner, I had also been boiling frozen spinach with cranberries. Now, I could eat spinach fresh or out of a can but, alas, my wife insists on the fresh frozen stuff. I like to drizzle a nice X pattern of raspberry vinegar on spinach and did so here too.
We also made salads but, I find, salad toppings to be a highly individual preference. We like to use bell peppers, banana peppers, feta, cranberries, strawberries, walnuts and real bacon over spring mix. Usually, I've been into Ken's steakhouse Vedalia Onion dressing and, more recently, Ott's poppy seed but that night we all tried the latest that her dad may become a distributor for:
Grandma's Cool & Zesty Dressing - German Style Blend
It was good but very light and a little sweet. I liked it because it didn't overpower the collective flavors of the salad like many dressings can. Even my usual choices above is pretty overpowering. I was like a sweet oil and vinegar italian.
The bread, for the most part, is something I like to keep barebones. It's easy to overdress bread but I don't generally like it to overshadow the rest of the meal. In this case I bought a regular french roll and brushed garlic infused olive oil over it before baking it long enough to get the inside warm and the outside crusty. With this we served the rest of the pesto and parm and garlic dusted olive oil.
I'm not usually a fan of sweeter wines, but they are, so we opened a piesporter
For desert, because of the fall, I made carmel apples from those little carmel kits you can get with the round apple covers. I rolled them in candied walnuts.
Overall, it was a tasty dinner and some of you gnarly bastards might like to try it for yourselves. Almost all of it can be had at Sams or, preferably, your local neighborhood family owned grocery story.
(don't blame me, we were at Sams for the big bag of dogfood. Now that the puppies are 65 and 78 pounds... well...)
After pondering a few ideas, greek stuffed chicken breasts or mexican taco meatloaf, I decided that I wanted to do something using a pesto sauce recipe that I found online. Specifically,
Fresh Basil Pesto Recipe | Simply Recipes
So, I used that basic recipe with fresh basil, double the parm cheese and walnuts and set aside.
I hate waiting for water to boil. However, I used the giant stockpot we had to get the medium penne noodles going. While waiting for that, I pan fried these links of Spinach and Asiago cheese chicken sausage links we bought from Sams. After draining the penne, I poured 1 cup of black olive juice back in with the noodles for a quick saute until the liquid was gone. I cut the sausages in quarters, longway, and then into inch-long pieces after they were done cooking; adding them to the noodles after. Once the olive juice cooked out I spooned in 90% of the pesto to the noodle-sausage concoction. The heat, on medium low, melted the parm enough for the pesto to adhere to the noodles and sausage deliciously. On presentation, I spooned in a healthy serving and added a dusting of feta and freshly diced tomatoes and some of the sliced olives mentioned earlier.
Over on the second burner, I had also been boiling frozen spinach with cranberries. Now, I could eat spinach fresh or out of a can but, alas, my wife insists on the fresh frozen stuff. I like to drizzle a nice X pattern of raspberry vinegar on spinach and did so here too.
We also made salads but, I find, salad toppings to be a highly individual preference. We like to use bell peppers, banana peppers, feta, cranberries, strawberries, walnuts and real bacon over spring mix. Usually, I've been into Ken's steakhouse Vedalia Onion dressing and, more recently, Ott's poppy seed but that night we all tried the latest that her dad may become a distributor for:
Grandma's Cool & Zesty Dressing - German Style Blend
It was good but very light and a little sweet. I liked it because it didn't overpower the collective flavors of the salad like many dressings can. Even my usual choices above is pretty overpowering. I was like a sweet oil and vinegar italian.
The bread, for the most part, is something I like to keep barebones. It's easy to overdress bread but I don't generally like it to overshadow the rest of the meal. In this case I bought a regular french roll and brushed garlic infused olive oil over it before baking it long enough to get the inside warm and the outside crusty. With this we served the rest of the pesto and parm and garlic dusted olive oil.
I'm not usually a fan of sweeter wines, but they are, so we opened a piesporter
For desert, because of the fall, I made carmel apples from those little carmel kits you can get with the round apple covers. I rolled them in candied walnuts.
Overall, it was a tasty dinner and some of you gnarly bastards might like to try it for yourselves. Almost all of it can be had at Sams or, preferably, your local neighborhood family owned grocery story.
(don't blame me, we were at Sams for the big bag of dogfood. Now that the puppies are 65 and 78 pounds... well...)
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