pesto | Hey… It's Jet Here

Hey It’s Jet Here.

While Little Miss Color Restricted and I cannot fully grasp the color green due to evolutionary constraints , Mom makes up for both of us! This week, her weekend cooking sessions highlighted green all over the place. Having had quite enough of orange vegetables since leaving the hospital, she segued to another band of the rainbow with Dr. V’s permission. You may have learned in science class that when one sense has limits, another sense shines. In K9 world, we rock smell, hearing and enjoy taste quite a lot! With that in mind, Little Miss Kitchen K9 and I secured our kitchen locations for Mom’s cooking endeavors.

Remember Mom’s fascination with fennel a while back? Well, when she asked Dr. V about greens, Dr. V recommended soft greens. Mom piled the red kale, zucchini, Italian parsley, basil and baby arugula into her cart. Did I mention ARUGULA? Yeah, the stuff has like 3 names: arugula, rocket, roquette. Mom has a new fascination… yes, she’s enjoyed the veggie before, used it in her Kitchen Counselor classes, etc… however this weekend, she put the stuff in EVERYTHING!

Little Miss Show Off/Whoops What Did I DO ate a whole leaf and then casually dropped it on the tile – not enough crunch. Mom tried again removing the small stems; we liked that idea better. Oh, I forgot to mention that Ruby participated in one of the cooking sessions! Little Miss Puppy Dog Face and I LOVE when Ruby hangs out in the kitchen; more tidbits than usual seem to find our chompers! Ruby wanted to see if we liked parsley!

Arugula-Caraway Pesto Pasta

1 cup arugula leaves
1 cup fresh parsley leaves
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup toasted slivered almonds (Mom used whole almonds she already had.)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon McCormick® Caraway Seed, finely crushed
8 ounces periatelli pasta or thick spaghetti (Mom didn’t prepare this part of the recipe.)
2 cups thinly sliced red Swiss chard (cut crosswise into thin strips) (Mom didn’t prepare this part of the recipe.)

1. Place arugula, parsley, oil, almonds, Parmesan cheese, garlic and caraway seed in bowl of food processor; cover. Process until smooth. Set aside.
2. Meanwhile, cook pasta as directed on package. Drain pasta, reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking water. Return pasta to saucepot.
3. Stir Swiss chard into pasta on low heat until greens are wilted. Add pesto; toss to coat well, adding small amounts of reserved cooking water until desired consistency. Serve with additional Parmesan cheese, if desired.

Mom’s taking the Pesto to the biscuit earning place today with a grilled chicken breast. Check out her FB album to see the step-by-step process.

Another great day in the kitchen with Mom and Ruby.

Thanks to Sugar and Kol for initiating Tasty Tuesdays, today is our forty-second participating post!

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Hey It’s Jet Here.

Ok, I’m starting to see why some Moms get the Super Mom title. After work yesterday, Mom hit the grocery store to purchase last minute items for my human sister, Rachel’s, cooking endeavors. Then she returned home and reviewed over 210 emails, deleting more than 132! Since her sleep totaled 6 hours in two days, she tried to nap for about an hour and then zipped to an appointment. As she was leaving, Rachel and three friends arrived to resume Hunger Games premiere cooking.

Mom returned to find, hmmm… let’s see how to put this gently – PANDAMONIUM IN THE KITCHEN AND DRAMA IN THE HOUSE. You know teenagers and their love lives. We K9s keep it simple, we sniff, we play, we mount – JET, yes Mom? You know I do not approve of that last action. I know your friend Sam taught you when he constantly did that to your sister, Koko. Oh, ok, Mom. Anyway, Mom noted silently the slow pace of progression through the “to do” list. She felt another late night coming on.

JJ and I sat beneath her as she attempted to work on the computer, giving her moral support while the following noises traveled down the hallway:

SPLAT!
OH NO!
WHAT DROPPED?
CLANK!
WHAT DO I CLEAN THAT WITH?
SORRY, I DIDN’T MEAN TO DO (FILL IN A BUNCH OF BLANKS)

Finally, Mom jumped in to the rescue, when the group numbered two: Rachel and Jesse (from 10:30 – midnight). She helped complete the quadrupled pesto and guided Jesse on combining and storing the sauce with the pasta in Ziplocs. Jesse worked on the last bag while sitting on the floor and the ~~BEST~~ worst thing happened… the bag burped and sauce went all over the floor.

No worries Mom! I leapt off the couch and JJ bounded out of bed to clean the floor in minutes. We doubled our clean up efforts with quality control of course. I then proceeded to help Mom with my expert dish licking abilities as Mom loaded the dishwasher for the 2^nd time of the night.

We won’t get into the hot chocolate volcano… until… well, let’s see what tonight brings!

Another great and tasty day.