Kitchen (Mis)Adventure: Spinach Pesto Pasta Salad

I took this photo of one of my favorite meals months ago, look at how beautiful it is! I was reminded to post a Kitchen (Mis)Adventure about it on Sunday when I was making a new batch. I generally get six servings out of any given batch of my spinach pesto pasta concoction and, though Jason will have it once and maybe repeat with leftovers the next day, I'll eat it every day (sometimes twice a day) until the bowl's empty. Because it's amazing, and filling, and wholesome, and rad.

It takes all of 15 minutes to prepare, it tastes better the second (third, fourth) day, and you can eat it straight out of the fridge. DECADENCE. 

Ingredients:
8 oz penne pasta
0.5 cup pesto
8 oz baby spinach
2 cups kidney beans
juice of 2 lemons
0.75 cup toasted almonds
handful of chopped up sun-dried tomatoes
a healthy dash of red pepper flakes

While the pasta's cooking, prep and then dump the fresh spinach, beans, and sun-dried tomatoes into a large bowl. When the pasta's done and drained, quickly dump it on top of the spinach, legumes, and tomatoes and let it sit and steam for a bit. Toast your almonds (or buy a bag of pre-toasted almond slivers at Trader Joe's like I do and avoid all that), slice up and juice your lemons, measure out your pesto, and then dump all that in, too. Super excelente, you're all done.

We generally eat it at room temperature or cold, with some broiled chicken, as seen above. It's perfectly great on its own, but adding the chicken helps Jason feel like he's eating a real meal (eye-roll). It doesn't even need any grated cheese sprinkled on top (though I do add some generally because I'm a glutton) -- making it a great vegan dish! OOPS, wait, pesto sauce has cheese, right? I'm sure somebody's figured out how to make vegan pesto, probably Sarah Britton at My New Roots. Have you seen this shit? Vegan food has never looked (so) attractive. HA! 

I originally adapted this recipe from theKitchn's Lemony Pesto Pasta with Edamame and Almonds (mouthful), and it changes slightly every time I make it. The "pasta, pesto, lemon, legumes, iron-rich dark greens" formula is super versatile. As long as it's light on the pasta/pesto and heavy on the greens/lemon juice/legumes,* I don't think it really matters what you use, it'll always come out perfect. Doodle around with it and let me know what you come up with!

Lastly, I want to mention that this stuff is super healthful. Don't be turned off by the pesto -- you're using a very small amount, so little that it isn't really "saucy" just "bindy" in a small-amount-of-salad-dressing kind of way. I calculated its caloric and nutritional information** on Sunday, and (with a light sprinkling of grated pecorino-romano and not including the broiled chicken) two heaping salad-tongs full is all of 450 calories and a swell balance of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, etc. AM I BORING YOU YET? 

* Do be sure to "steam" the greens with the hot pasta a bit before stirring in the pesto and lemon juice, though. Especially if you're working with some gnarly fresh dino-kale or something.
** Can you tell that I'm trying to lose weight? I wouldn't be able to without this dish, life would be too awful.

Now Knitting: Knits for small people

EZ sweater for a small girl baby.

A couple of weeks before I left for Spain, Stevenson's Core coordinator started up a knitting circle at the college, the Stevenson Stitch, Monday evenings. It was perfect timing -- I was a couple of weeks out of my Forever Spring Break period, I was looking forward to new ways to be a sociable human being, I needed to get started on some knitting for Paula's baby girl (due in June), and I wanted to get back to doing an activity that would help me to, generally, CHILL OUT. I hadn't worked on a knitting project in over a year.

I showed up on the first day, and it was just Caren, my coordinator, and handful of her students -- two of which were just learning to knit. Let me tell you: it was delightful. Delightful. We sat and talked, I helped a girl learn to distinguish knit stitches from purled stitches (scarves vs. nooses!), and I cast on for the baby sweater above. I went straight home after we stopped at 9pm and continued working on the sweater until 2am like a crazy person. I'd forgotten how relaxing knitting is! It's like yoga for the brain, I can meditate on those little stitches for hours and hours and hours.

I finished knitting the sweater by the end of the week and went back to the next week's Stitch to sew in all the loose yarn. I intended to sew up the under-arm seams (the only seams that the sweater has!) as well, but I'm a lazy person who hates seaming so screw it, I'll do it later.

I got the pattern from the book above: Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac. EZ has beautiful, simple and intuitive designs and a great knitting ethos. Consider the following gauge notes for baby leggings:

Don't worry too much about size; babies vary, and knitting stretches. 

Revolutionary! No numbers listed at all. WHO CARES if it isn't perfect! WHO CARES if you forgot to put in a botton hole or two! WHO CARES if you goofed the lace pattern a couple of times! The baby certainly won't!

Here's a photograph of what the finished sweater will look like, above. When I first got started on the sweater, all those knitting-produced endorphins shot me into expectations turbo over-drive: I was convinced that I would get the sweater, bonnet, leggings, and blanket all done in time for my visit to NYC this summer. Since I've had about a month to let my expectations settle, reality has set in, and I've come to set my goals to completing the sweater, bonnet, and a pair of booties to match. Those leggings look like a lot of fun, so they're definitely on the list for later, but I need to pace myself (and she won't need them until winter). 

I won't be posting any finished images to the blog until after my trip to NYC in July (lest Paula checks in on the blog regularly, not sure that she does), but I'll post little tidbits to the Instagram feed and here as well as I work on this and future projects. The knitting bug has bitten again, hard. (GROSS)

Greetings from postcard season

Look what I found in my mailbox when I got home earlier this week -- the second postcard of the season! If you've been keeping an eye on my Instagram activities over the past couple of weeks, you'll know that I've just gotten back from a family trip to Spain. It was the first time in about ten years that my parents and sister and I have been able to go together as a family to visit my grandparents and extended family, and it was great. More on that sometime soon. In the meantime, enjoy this garden gnomes and Jesus Christ, Chelsea Flea Market postcard from Sarah T!

The nuptial celebration she refers to is her own. I'm looking forward to a great, Latin American Entourage,* NYC reunion -- even if it is in July, my second-least favorite month in NYC (right after August). That's how much I love you, Sarah T: voluntarily -- happily, even -- coming to NYC in the middle of summer, my hell on earth.

* Oh, the Entourage: I miss you!