"Green Dinner"

We unintentionally had a green dinner on St. Patrick's day! I didn't even realize it went with the day's theme until I was mixing the pesto in the pasta. It was very good. Ashley all of her salmon and wanted more. Natalie ate all of her pasta and wanted more. So they switched plates and were happy! We usually have this once a week!



Salmon with Pesto Pasta


2 lbs salmon- cooked however

1⁄2 C pignoli (pine nuts imported from Italy)

1 C chopped fresh basil

1 C chopped fresh spinach leaves

1 large garlic clove

1⁄4 C freshly grated Romano

1⁄4 C freshly grated Parmesan

6 T butter softened

1⁄2 C olive oil

1/8 tsp fresh ground pepper


In food processor or blender with metal blade add pine nuts, basil, spinach, garlic, and cheeses. With motor running, add the butter and oil. Mix in the pepper. (this should take no more than 1 minute). Use with 1 lb cooked pasta. Toss with cooked salmon.

*****
I try to make several batches of pesto at once, especially in the summer when basil is in abundance! We put it in 1 cup containers and freeze it. The hot pasta will melt it, so we don't even defrost it. If you refrigerate or freeze it, be sure that you block air from touching it so it doesn't turn brown. The containers I use fit perfectly so the lid touches the pesto, but you can just put a layer of plastic wrap touching it inside the container if it doesn't fit perfectly!
We like to cook our salmon with lots of lemon pepper and pressed garlic.

As a side note: if you make the recipe exactly as indicated above, the whole pesto is 2207 calories with 213 grams of fat. I am not sure exactly how much pesto you end up with, but we usually divide one cup of pesto into 8-10 servings- a little pesto goes a long way! Hope this is helpful!