Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and wishing all of you a Happy Holiday season as 2012 draws to a close.
What has this year been for you?
What 2012 has been for me
For me, it has been a journey of discovery about food, health, fitness, relationships and dating, among other things. It's been a year of great personal growth and this blog was created to share my journey with you.What I've experienced in the past
I've been interested in cooking and healthy cooking at that for some time now but being single and somewhat frugal, I never wanted to waste food so my cooking was not very ambitious, if you will. I cooked food I like that didn't spoil easily and helped me manage my weight. Period. End of story. I pretty much ate sweet potato, salads (not organic with store bought salad dressings), brown rice (not organic), Korean side dishes and soups (more nutritious and less calorie dense than the majority of American store bought food yes but also often high in sodium/msg). Vegetables do spoil easily so when I bought them, I only bought what I liked in my salads and made sure to eat them before they went bad. I also ate store bought cereals, oil that had higher probability of going rancid sooner, meat and dairy products that were high in hormones, unethically farmed, and down right not good for my health in the quantities that the American diet tends to value. I'm about 99.9% positive that GMOs were finding their way into my food as well because I wasn't very selective as I am now.I thought the way I used to eat was okay for health (and perhaps is relative to the way many others eat) but after reading a few books written by doctors and experts in their fields, I realized that I could no longer gamble with my health knowing what I now had discovered, especially considering the outrageous (in my view) cost of health care in this country and the current economic conditions.
With that having been said (kind of at random, sorry about that!), I now will get to the main point of this post, what caused you to click the link and open it in the first place. (I promise I'm not trying to be deceptive and lure you in with some catchy title so I can pounce on you with my personal views! I just wanted to share my story with you. Hope that's alright.)
What inspired me to make this dish
Ok well back to food spoiling. Did you know that Americans throw away way too much food? Not sure the statistic but it's a lot. And did you know that food thrown away in the land fill actually causes pollution problems? The fumes released from rotten food is bad for the environment. Don't believe me? Google it. or Bing it. Or whichever search engine you prefer. ;o)~ |
| Arugula leaves. Photo courtesy of Wiki Commons |
So it's now the day after Thanksgiving and I've eaten way more than necessary in thanks for having enough food to eat (and then some) - ie a bountiful harvest, right? Or something like that. Anyhow, I had this arugula in my fridge (and I had already eaten leftovers at lunch and at dinner the night before) and searched recipes for arugula on the internet (in case you don't know or need reminding, arugula has a very unique flavor raw so I didn't want to be too daring, ya know). And low and behold, I found a recipe first for arugula pesto with pine nuts. I've always substituted almonds in my basil pesto because those are the only nuts I tend to have on hand. Just to make sure, I 'Googled' (that's one of those nouns that became a verb, right? or should I say 'I searched via Google?') arugula pesto with almonds and discovered that it was not my own creative genius that came up with that one.
What I did to make this dish
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I read over the two recipes and sort of winged it in conjunction with previous pesto making experience. I decided to roast the garlic because it does help to balance the garlic flavor with the rest of the ingredients (and if I'm not mistaken, one recipe suggested that). I heated a pan, added coconut oil (yes, coconut oil, it's healthier), then roasted the garlic. Sauteed the garlic. Pan-fried the garlic. I prefer the term roasted but I think roasting happens in the oven??? I left the outer skin on and it just came right off in while cooking. Awesome. I set that aside to cool (my blender is plastic and I don't like the idea of heat and plastic together, period. Might end up becoming toxic and I don't want to take a chance). Then I pan roasted (there we go) the almonds, onion, and arugula with a tad bit more garlic (I love garlic and I wanted the garlic flavor infused with the other ingredients) and some sea salt and freshly ground pepper. At this point, I must say the arugula itself tasted so AWESOME! It was green vegetable flavored with garlic heaven in my mouth!Then it was time for the "molecular transformation process' (I guess that's what it's called, not sure. I didn't go to culinary school and I just don't have time at the moment to 'Google' this but please by all means if you know, share!). So in layman's terms, I poured some organic extra virgin olive oil in the blender, then added the 'pan roasted' ingredients and pushed the 'start' button and voila! I had some seriously yummy tasting pesto on my hands that I spooned over some steamed organic broccoli and carrots and I couldn't believe my taste buds!
What to take away from this (kind of lengthy) post
Arugula almond pesto is just as good as any other pesto and that there are tons of "pestos" out there so if you've got some ingredients on hand that could work, try it! If you like playing it safe, by all means, search the internet for some creative culinary validation first. Here are the two sources of validation I found. Also, please refer to these sites for recipe guidelines.http://americanfood.about.com/od/saucesdipsanddressings/r/Arugula_Pesto_Recipe.htm
http://simplyrecipes.ziplist.com/recipes/232506-Arugula_Pesto?return_to=%2Frecipes%2Fbox
Check out my store on Amazon for organic goods: The Green Home Cook Diva's Shop on Amazon
*This post has been linked to Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways blog community*
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