Meg's Meal Planning

pesto

How to make homemade pesto

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There is nothing tastier than homemade pesto, and nothing smells better in the summer than the sweet, aromatic scent of fresh basil! 

pesto homemade

Basil is one of my favorite herbs to grow in my garden. I dedicate an entire section of the garden just for basil because I buy so many plants! Homemade pesto is perfect for numerous summer dishes-pasta, chicken, paninis, pizza etc. Try my Trader Joe’s cauliflower crust pizza topped with pesto, or this easy pasta with pesto, cherry tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella. 

Homemade pesto

A great way to have homemade pesto in the winter is to freeze the pesto in ice cube trays. My recipe makes 6 “ice” cubes which are 2 oz each. Add pesto to ice cube tray, freeze overnight, then pop out and store in a freezer zip lock bag.

Summer pesto

How to make homemade pesto
 
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Serves: 1 cup
Ingredients
  • 3 cups fresh basil
  • ¼ cup unsalted almonds
  • ½ cup parmesan cheese
  • 2-3 cloves of garlic
  • ⅓ cup olive oil
Instructions
  1. Add all ingredients, except olive oil, to a food processor and blend well.
  2. Slowly drizzle olive oil and continue to blend.
  3. Add salt and pepper to taste.

 

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Easy homemade basil pesto

Homemade Pesto Pizza with Chicken Sausage

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Homemade pizza with a homemade pesto sauce is an easy weeknight dinner that the whole family will enjoy!


There is not much that makes me happier than a warm, sunny Friday evening in the summer. The thought of getting out of work, picking up a 6 pack or bottle of wine and cooking a nice dinner is what gets me through the day! If the humidity isn’t bad, which it has been recently in Connecticut unfortunately, you’ve hit the jackpot! And there is not a more laid back dinner to make on a Friday than homemade pizza!

The best part about homemade pizza is it’s a great way to use some left overs in your fridge and make room for next week’s groceries. For this pizza, I used a veggie pesto sauce which was originally planned for my son’s pasta, but I forgot about it! Any kind of pesto sauce will do – homemade, store bought, veggie, or traditional basil.


Veggie Pesto Sauce

To make the veggie pesto sauce, I added to a food processor four large kale leaves, one cup of cut zucchini, a handful of raw baby carrots, and shredded Parmesan cheese. Blend in the food processor and  drizzle in olive oil until the desired consistency is reached.

When making homemade pizza, heating your pizza stone is a HUGE must. The longer you heat it, the more crispy and crunchy your pizza dough will be.  We usually heat ours in a 500 degree F oven for 20-30 minutes. The prep time for the pizza includes heating the pizza stone.

While the stone is heating, I will roll my dough out either on a clean counter or a cookie sheet in order to prevent burning myself.

Pesto Pizza with Chicken Sausage
 
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Serves: 2
Ingredients
  • Pizza dough
  • Pesto sauce - see above for veggie pesto sauce recipe
  • Two precooked chicken sausage links, sliced
  • ¼ cup sun dried tomatoes
  • Handful fresh basil
  • Shredded mozzarella cheese
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees and heat pizza stone for 20-30 minutes.
  2. Remove pizza stone from oven and wipe down with olive oil.
  3. Carefully stretch pizza dough out on pizza stone and cover with pesto sauce.
  4. Sprinkle cheese on, then add chicken sausage, sundried tomatoes, and basil.
  5. Bake at 450 F for 15 minutes.

 

Pasta with Pesto, Mozzarella, and Cherry Tomatoes 

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Pesto, mozzarella, and cherry tomatoes are the perfect trio. Mixed together and served over pasta is the perfect summer dinner! 

Last year I shared my love for simple and easy dinners. In case you missed it, click here to read about my 12 easy dinner ideas.  Having quick meals, meaning easy prep and easy clean up, leaves you with more time to enjoy your summer!

This dish is perfect because all it calls for is one knife, one cutting board, and one pot! I made my pesto ahead of time. To read my pesto recipe, click here.



Pasta with Pesto, Mozzarella, and Cherry Tomatoes
 
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Recipe type: Italian
Serves: 2
Ingredients
  • ½ box of pasta, your choice
  • 1 carton of cherry tomatoes, halved
  • Handful of fresh basil leaves, sliced thinly
  • 8 oz fresh Mozzarella
  • ½ cup fresh pesto
Instructions
  1. Cook pasta according to box
  2. Meanwhile, add cherry tomatoes, Mozzarella, and basil leaves to a large serving bowl
  3. Drain pasta and add to the serving bowl
  4. Stir in pesto. If need can thin pesto with water first

 

 

Pasta with mushrooms, asparagus, and pesto

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Pasta with spring vegetables like asparagus and mushrooms mixed with a pesto sauce is an easy weeknight dinner. Use your choice of pasta. Bon Appetit. 

pasta pesto

Once you start seeing the sales for asparagus in the grocery store, you know Spring is on the way! Although asparagus is not one of my favorite vegetables, this recipe stood out to me.  It’s something different and I’m always looking for new ways to incorporate veggies in my diet. This recipe was inspired from Fine Cooking Magazine, April/May 2016 edition.  The recipe calls for cavatelli, but any kind pasta will do- penne, rigatoni, even tortellini!

You can use store bought pesto or click here for my homemade pesto recipe.

Pasta with mushrooms

 

Pasta with mushrooms, asparagus, and pesto
 
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Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • Kosher salt
  • 1 lb pasta, your choice
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 8 oz mushrooms, washed and sliced
  • 8 oz asparagus, trimmed and cut on the diagonal into 1 inch pieces
  • 2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 4 tbsp homemade or store bough pesto.
  • Ground black pepper
Instructions
  1. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Boil the pasta according to package directions until just shy of al dente. Reserve 1 cup of the cooking water and drain.
  2. Meanwhile, heat the oil and butter in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the mushrooms and asparagus, cook until the mushrooms start turning brown, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute
  3. Add 2 tbsp pesto and pasta water and stir. Lower the heat, toss in the pasta and simmer until the pasta is al dente, 1-2 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, and additional pesto if needed. Serve with grated cheese.

 

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Mushrooms, asparagus, pasta

 

 

Cooking with Hope

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My sister, Hope, is a junior in college and will be living in a house next year with NO MEAL PLAN!  I remember being in her shoes and being so nervous thinking, “What the hell am I going to eat!?”  She has the same fears and wants to learn some easy meals to make next year.

The Cooking with Hope series will feature meals we make together over the next few weeks until she leaves for school. The first meal is homemade pizza!

We made two pizza pies – the first is your basic Margherita pizza and the second was a pesto pizza with spicy chicken sausage and sun dried tomatoes.  We experimented cooking the two pizzas by preheating one pizza stone, but not the other. And let me tell you, BIG mistake not preheating both of them. The preheated stone gave the dough a nice crispy crust! Once both pizzas were prepared, we cooked them together.

  

Margherita Pizza

Ingredients

  • Pizza dough
  • Pizza sauce
  • Sliced fresh mozzarella
  • Handful fresh basil

Steps

  1. Roll dough on cookie sheet or pizza stone
  2. Spread pizza sauce on dough, top with fresh mozzarella
  3. Bake at 475 for 15 minutes (for the Margherita pizza, we didn’t preheat the cookie sheet)
  4. Slice basil and top on pizza once it’s done cooking

Pesto Pizza with Spicy Chicken Sausage and Sun Dried Tomatoes

Ingredients

  • Pizza dough
  • Pesto, click here for recipe
  • Olive oil
  • 2 Spicy chicken sausages, sliced thin
  • Sun dried tomatoes
  • Shredded mozzarella cheese

Steps

  1. Preheat oven to 350 and heat pizza stone for 15-30 minutes. I only preheated it for 15 minutes because I was too hungry to wait the full time, but it will make the dough even more crunchy!
  2. While the pizza stone is heating, drizzle some oil olive in a frying pan. Saute the chicken sausage until no longer pink in the middle. I used only two pieces and froze the rest.
  3. After 15-30 minutes take out the pizza stone and carefully spread your dough out. Remember it’s hot! Turn oven up to 475 degrees
  4. Spread a layer of pesto. Add your shredded cheese, then top with chicken sausage and sun dried tomatoes. Cook both pizzas together for 15 minutes or until the crust is turning brown.

Week of July 12th

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I’m back! The past two weeks were much needed! I caught up with old friends, celebrated my one year wedding anniversary in Portland, ME, (click here to read about Portland), and went on a family vacation!  Over the past two weeks I finished my CSA, made LOTS of PESTO, tried some new recipes, and ate way too much seafood! (Not always a bad thing!).  

  
I made two variations of pesto.  The first one was with just basil and the second one was with basil and sorrel, both from the CSA.  

Basil Pesto

  • Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

  • 3 cups fresh basil
  • 1/4 cup unsalted almonds
  • 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
  • 2-3 cloves of garlic 
  • 1/3 cup olive oil

Directions

  1. Add all ingredients, except olive oil, to a food processor and blend well.
  2. Slowly drizzle olive oil and continue to blend.
  3. Add salt and pepper to taste.
 

***For the 2nd batch I followed the same recipe, but added fresh sorrel with the basil.  I froze more than half of the pesto and stored the rest in a tightly sealed mason jar. 

Monday– Panini- homemade basil pesto (see above), tomato, fresh sliced mozzarella. Another easy dinner!  Spread the pesto on the panini, layer with tomato and sliced mozzarella. Toasted on panini maker! 

Tuesday– Grilled salmon and grilled snap peas. Finished off the last snap peas from the CSA.  I love this grilled snap pea recipe, I’ve used it almost every time. It’s simple and tasty! I didn’t use a wood plank for the salmon because last time, we didn’t like how it came out. Any tips?? Instead, the salmon was seasoned with salt and pepper and placed directly on the grill for 10 minutes. 

Wednesday– Pasta with cherry tomatoes and fresh basil.  Another easy dinner for a summer night.

Thursday– Left over pulled pork, baked beans, and kohlrabi coleslaw. The pulled pork was from my parents and the kohlrabi was from the CSA.  I had never heard of kohlrabi before; it tastes like a cabbage, but has a little more crunch!

Friday– Pesto chicken. Finished off the rest of the basil. This was a great recipe, something I can’t wait to eat again once I start getting tomatoes from my garden! 

  

Pesto Pizza

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This was an easy week night recipe, especially since I already had the pesto made up. If you don’t, no worries, it’s still simple to make. I used the pesto I made from sorrel. Click here for the pesto recipe. And I used store bought dough.

I LOVE fresh basil!!

 

Spray pizza stone and roll out dough, use flour if needed

 

Spread pesto on top


Ingredients

  • 1 package of store bought dough
  • Fresh pesto, click here for pesto recipe 
  • Mozzarella cheese, shredded
  • 1-2 tomatoes, slicked
  • 5-6 basil leaves, sliced

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2. Spray a cookie sheet or pizza stone and roll your dough out. Use flour if sticking to rolling pin

3. Spread pesto over dough

4. Add shredded cheese

5. Add slicedtomato

6. Bake for 12-15 minutes

7. Add basil slices

Week of May 31st

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Monday–Skirt steak, musrhoom, and kale stir fry served over brown rice. A one pot meal = minimum clean up and more time to watch the Bachelorette! (It’s my guilty pleasure!) 

Tuesday – Grilled Salmon with grilled asparagus and rice. Thank you to everyone who told me where to find cedar planks. We did try them, but I was really disappointed! The salmon did not have the same smokey, grilled flavor like when you lay it directly on the grates. It was so bad, I didn’t even want to take a picture of it or blog about it!  So for tonight’s recipe, we went back to old faithful and laid the salmon right on the grill. I would appreciate any tips from people who use wood planks! 

Wednesday – Panini sandwich with pesto, fresh mozzarella, tomato, and prosciutto. Another easy dinner.  My husband and I worked putting up a fence around our garden tonight, so I knew we needed something easy to make.  Panini sandwich to the rescuse! I used store bought pesto. Hopefully once our garden takess off, I’ll be making homemade pesto! 

 
Ingredients         Recipe is for two sandwiches

  • Your choice of panini bread
  • 2 tablespoons of pesto
  • Fresh mozzarella, sliced
  • Tomato, sliced
  • 4-6 slices of prosciutto
  1. Cut panini bread into two sandwiches
  2. Spread pesto on bottom piece of both sandwiches
  3. Lay prosciutto, mozzarella, and tomato
  4. Place on panini press or George Foreman grill. Grill until cheese is melted.

Thursday – Cheeseburgers with grilled squash and zucchni and baked beans. There’s just something about grilled veggies during summer! Can’t wait until I can use vegetables from my own garden! I season with just olive oil, salt, and pepper and use a grill basket to hold them. 

Friday – Seared scallops with brussel sprouts and prosciutto. Scallops were on sale for $6.99/lb, so I decided to treat my husband and myself! I used the rest of the left over prosciutto from Wednesday night’s panini sandwich to add to the dish. It sounds like an elegant dish, but it’s very easy and quick to make!    

  
Next week I start my CSA box and I’m so excited!! CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. To learn more about a CSA box click here to read about the farm I’m getting mine from. It’s a great idea because you are supporting a local farm and you get healthy and fresh produce!  Everybody wins!