Pesto Sauce & Whole Wheat Macaroni!!

Since we have a LOT of basil growing in our yard, I decided to finally make pesto, something I've been planning for the past 5 years. No kidding. With plenty of basil, a whole bag pine nuts, and a tray of garlic, all I needed was some parmesan cheese.

I adapted this recipe a lot since my sister doesn't really like basil. She actually doesn't like garlic either, so next time I'll just make pesto sauce without garlic specially for her and then make real pesto. In addition, I didn't use too much oil, since I used a whole cup of pine nuts and a whole cup of cheese. The pesto itself was therefore much creamier and thick, which I prefer over a light and liquidy pasta sauce. It also occurred to me that pesto is a raw sauce... Hm. Interesting. The nice thing was that I got her involved in the cooking process. Dinner was quite spectacular for my mum too because she didn't have to cook or do dishes.

Ingredients

1 cup fresh basil leaves!

1.5 cups spinach leaves (or more basil - again, my sister doesn't really like basil)

2 small bulbs of garlic

0.5 cup olive oil

1 cup pine nuts, toasted.

1 cup grated parmesan cheese

250 g organic whole wheat macaroni

0.5 cup water

Method.

1. Cook macaroni.

2. Wash leaves. Stick in blender with garlic and toasted pine nuts and pulse a few times

3. Add cheese, oil, and water. Pulse.

4. Scoop generous globs of pesto onto drained macaroni.

5. Sprinkle with more parmesan!

6. EAT EAT EAT!

The best part is that I made restaurant-quality sauce for literally something like a dollar.

Oh, here I am again ranting on that other person's blog (see yesterday's post) who lists the price of all the ingredients.

I'll do that here too, just so I can be "famous" and "adored".

Ingredients if I want to be honest about the price

1 cup fresh basil leaves! - $0 (from garden)

1.5 cups spinach leaves (or more basil - again, my sister doesn't really like basil) - $0.25

2 small bulbs of garlic - $0 (from garden)

0.5 cup olive oil - $0 (got reimbursed)

1 cup pine nuts, toasted. - $0 (got reimbursed)

1 cup grated parmesan cheese $~1

250 g organic whole wheat macaroni $0 (used dining dollars, so it's technically free.)

0.5 cup water $0

Total: $1.25

Price per serving: $0.25

Or, Ingredients if I want to emulate the other blog

1 cup fresh basil leaves! - $1

1.5 cups spinach leaves (or more basil - again, my sister doesn't really like basil) - $0.25

2 small bulbs of garlic - $0.20?

0.5 cup olive oil - $0.40?

1 cup pine nuts, toasted. - $3?

1 cup grated parmesan cheese $~1

250 g organic whole wheat macaroni $2

0.5 cup water $0

Total: $8

Price per serving: $1.60

IN YOUR FACE, TRITE OTHER BLOG!

I guess I'm still bitter about how that person gets so much freakin' respect for something not that notable.

I'm really glad that I made pesto sauce, since we have a LOT of basil, a lot of pine nuts, and a lot of delicious cheese. It's also so simple! I tried it on fries and it was great too. I don't think I want to use any oil next time; I'll just make it with water since the pine nuts have a lot of lipids anyway. I won't use spinach either, if I'm not making it for my sister.

Dorney Park

TJ invited me to go to Dorney Park with her and her family. Although I have been to Dorney Park before, 3 summers ago, I still found it fun since I love roller coasters (I've never been to a water park before, and I guess I'm just not interested in them).

Knowing amusement parks, I should've brought along some food. I did bring my steel water bottle, and there were water fountains (so I didn't have to waste $3.50 on water!!). The food was overpriced, of course, which is why I got fries. I haven't had fries in at least two months, and I've been craving them, even though I could get them for $1 somewhere nearby. The fries I got were $5.83, although I later saw them for about $5 at another part of the park :(. The fries nice and crunchy though, and sort of fulfilled my craving.

Since TJ's mum is part of a union, they got this free buffet meal thing (it was union day at the park), although TJ told me that there was no real vegetarian stuff there - it was all burgers and hot dogs etc. There was mayo-covered potatoes ("potato salad") and macaroni (sweeter... "macaroni salad"), which TJ brought out of the catering area in my bag, which got soaked in some mayo. Haha, oh well. The potato salad was mediocre, but not terrible since it was free. While we were eating, I was watching the three guys at the table next to ours; two were eating pizza/fries/milkshake, while the other one was eating a burger/fries/milkshake. While he went off to get some ketchup, the other two guys grabbed about half of his fries. He came back with ketchup, and seemed unaware of the fact that half his fries had been stolen. Just an anecdote.

TJ was determined to get funnel cake, so after we had gone on all the rides that we wanted to go on (except Possessed, because we saw it break down four times), she bought one with powdered sugar ($7). I've never had funnel cake before, and I think that it's basically a doughnut with more exposed surface area...it's delicious, yes, but definitely not one of my favourite foods. I'd prefer doughnuts solely because I have more of an emotional attachment with them. The portion is huge, though. We ate only half of it, and boxed the rest for later.

I do like the crunchy bits of funnel cake with a lot of powdered sugar, actually.

Throughout the day, I basically saw foods in shades of yellow. (Such is America, right?). Actually, I did see some coloured foods in the form of sugar+food colouring. Oh, and somehow having real insects in a candy store is a good thing.

I wonder if I can bake funnel cake? Low-free funnel cake? I know that my sister likes it.

Macaroni and Cheese...on a Pizza.

The world is changing. There used to be a time where pizza, macaroni, and cheese were discrete. We then had pizza with cheese and macaroni and cheese.

And now I have encountered the sum of all parts. A macaroni and cheese pizza.

Yes, it's in a bowl because I had eaten cereal beforehand. The macaroni and cheese was ridiculously buttery, which was kind of a deterrent because it tasted more like buttery oily pasta on pizza dough. In other words, it didn't really taste cheesy or umami :(. Recently, I've realised that a lot of the dough at Commons is some mix of whole wheat and white flour, which makes the dough extremely... elasticky. It almost has a plastic sheen to it. I'd say it's the high gluten content that whole wheat flours tend to have [due to less refinement? If you look at nutrition labels, the 100% whole wheat flour-made breads usually have 5-6g protein per 120 Cal, wheras white bread... doesn't have many. 1-2g? 3? Anyway, this was at Hill... and it was most definitely white flour.