Audioslave ~ Like A Stone (Live)
Beth Hart ~ Skin
Stevie Ray Vaughan ~ Life By The Drop
The Fratellis ~ My Friend John
Evanescence ~ Lacrymosa
Gwen Stefani ~ The Real Thing
Bon Jovi ~ I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
Kid Rock ~ F**k That!
Ritchie Kotzen ~ You're Crazy
Bob Marley ~ Sun Is Shining
Otis Reading ~ Cigarettes and Coffee
The Calling ~ Keep Your Hands To Yourself
Dean Martin ~ Return To Me
Sensible Pets ~ Agitated
It's a national holiday this weekend so I have had the pleasure of having ML home an extra day which meant we had the time to make an extra effort to see our gang of pals. So yesterday we invited them over the bridge to our house and we caught up, drank wine, ate a scrumptious bowl of pasta, garlic bread and salad, drank wine, played a seemingly endless game of Trivial Pursuit, drank wine, ate a beautiful bowl of strawberries with vegan vanilla ice cream, drank wine and played some more. lol. But as ever the most important thing above all others was
Our pasta sauces were simple but made from scratch. The first being the K.I.S.S Marinara Sauce from Isa & Terrys Veganomicon..that rich tomatoey garlic sauce that makes the house smell glorious when its simmering away on the stove top. We served that with wholewheat penne pasta and it was devoured. The second offering was a very basic Pesto sauce so basic it almost seems silly to post the recipe but everyone loved it so much that I felt it was worth it. I don't like complicated pesto...I like to taste the freshness of the basil...the warmth of the garlic and the wholesome nuttiness of the pine nuts. We served this with a wholewheat fusilli pasta for plenty of potential pesto stickiness. lol. A vegan garlic bread was also part of the offering with a simple baguette drizzled with garlic infused oil and that worked really well. And of course it wouldn't be a good meal without a massive bowl of beautifully fresh leaves to complete the meal. Everyone decided to have both pastas lol and second helpings.
However we are left with quite a lot of leftover Marinara sauce which will be bagged up and frozen for future meals. We also had some Pesto left which will be used many ways and one of my favourites is in a breakfast tofu scramble..Yum! And secondly used as a pasta salad dressing. So none of it will go to waste.
Dinner was followed much later by, for D & I (the vegans) a luscious bowl of In Season Strawberries that were so ripe and succulent. I confess there was a drizzle of strawberry juice running from my lips moment. So happy! It was a moment of food bliss for me...lol. The weird non vegans had theirs in the form of an Eton Mess and they oohed and awed at it. But give me fresh strawberries and a scoop of vegan vanilla ice cream any day. lol.
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| Simple Pesto Pasta Salad |
Simple Pesto
2 cups of fresh basil leaves
100g pine nuts
2 cloves of garlic, bitter green centres removed
extra virgin olive oil
In a running processor add the basil, pine nuts and garlic and blend until finely chopped down. Then drizzle the oil through the feeder tub until the desired texture is reached. (I prefer a lot less oil then the average person so I haven't added amounts here but you need to make that judgement for yourself folks) Then scoop out into an airtight container and store in the fridge until ready to use.
For the salad simply add a scoop to cooled cooked pasta and devour. We did! lol. This pesto also works just great with Gluten Free pasta or noodles.
Enjoy!
Thanks for stopping by and I hope your week has started well...
~Red~
