Dinner

Ah, now to get down to brass tacks.  A blog about something I actually cooked.  A simple dinner tonight:  bruschetta, green salad and whole-wheat orecchiette with pinto beans and pesto.

 I quick-soaked half a pound of pinto beans for nearly 2 hours then boiled them until they were pretty much done, adding salt and pepper for the last few minutes of cook time.  Meanwhile, I boiled water for the pasta and prepped the salad.  The salad had red leaf lettuce, alfalfa sprouts, scallions, celery, julienned carrots (thanks to my new swissmar julienne peeler) and my standard homemade vinaigrette:

Combine:
1 clove garlic, minced
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 Tbs. coarsely chopped parsley
1 Tbs. sherry vinegar
1 tsp. grainy mustard
1 tsp. honey
salt and freshly ground pepper
Slowly add 2 Tbs. good extra virgin olive oil while whisking with a fork to emulsify
Toss with salad.

I also made the topping for the bruschetta:

2 ripe Roma tomatoes, diced
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 Tbs. coarsely chopped parsley
splash of sherry vinegar
drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper

I let that sit while I finished things, and close to the end toasted some of the bread I bought at Eataly, rubbed the toasts with a raw garlic clove, drizzled on some more olive oil, and spread them with some homemade pesto (made at the end of the summer and frozen).  The pesto toasts were topped with the tomato mixture and served.

Once the beans were done, I drained them and sauteed up another clove of coarsely chopped garlic in some olive oil.  I put the pasta up and added to the browning garlic the cooked beans, a good amount of pasta water, red pepper flakes and some chopped sun-dried tomatoes.  When the pasta was al dente, I drained it, squeezed half a lemon into the beans and tossed the pasta with everything in the pan.  I added half a cup of my pesto a sprinkling of salt and pepper and some chopped parsley for garnish.  Not too shabby for a little dinner for 2!

Dinner was delish, and I actually have leftovers because I made the whole pound of orecchiette.  The dressing came out especially good, I think because I used one of my really good olive oils, not just the standard supermarket extra virgin.  The pinto beans were so pretty before they were cooked, I was hoping they would stay spotty but, alas, they just turned pink.  Still, that won't stop me from using them again.