Posts Tagged basil

Cold pasta

August 18, 2012 at 9:09 am · Filed under pasta & noodles ·Tagged , , ,

We don’t have pasta super-often in comparison with near-daily rice, and so this dish ended up looking pretty fancy with all CSA basket veggies.

First, Yusuke sautéed chopped beets and their greens in olive oil and fresh garlic. The beets were not the stereotypical red/purple that we would expect, but were rather more orange and especially crunchy.

Next, he sliced gorgeous deep purple onions and soaked them in water to reduce bitterness.

After draining the onions, he mixed them with the beets and fresh basil and added balsamic vinegar, soba sauce, and lime juice.

It was all served over the room-temperature pasta, spaghettini to be precise. Most tasty for summer.

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Pesto pasta

November 4, 2011 at 6:14 am · Filed under pasta & noodles ·Tagged ,

Earlier in the summer, our csa basket featured tons o’ fresh basil. For this recipe, Yusuke employed at least 30 fresh leaves to make an experimental pesto sauce. It was tasty.

Instead of the traditional pine nuts, he used about 1 tsp of peanut butter. He combined it with the basil leaves, sea salt, about 150 mL of olive oil, and garlic. He used a blender, but a food processor would probably be more efficient.

The sauce was tossed with al dente spaghettini, graced by steamed eggplants. Rather than water, Yusuke used wine for steaming. He simply put eggplant slices in a frying pan, poured in white wine, and covered it with a lid. The effect was succulent and tangy.

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Italian-style okonomiyaki

September 13, 2011 at 6:28 am · Filed under pancakes ·Tagged , , , ,

This dish can be described as Italian-style okonomiyaki—a.k.a. we need to use up food basket contents. With lots of stuff to use up, creativity ensued.

Yusuke followed his usual okonomiyaki recipe, but instead used whole wheat flour and the following vegetable array:

  • cabbage
  • zucchini
  • carrots
  • tomatoes
  • fantastically beautiful fresh basil

The inclusion of basil and tomato evoked Italian cuisine, so instead of the usual toppings, we used sea salt and tasty balsamic vinegar. Exceedingly yummy; highly recommended.

Note that Yusuke always includes a secret weapon in okonomiyaki batter: crumbled firm tofu, with Soyarie being the brand of choose here in Montreal. It makes the pancake texture extra smooth and savoury.

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Basil pasta and shrimp salad

September 3, 2008 at 9:25 am · Filed under general soup, pasta & noodles, salad ·Tagged , , , , , ,

basil pasta and shrimp salad

basil pasta and shrimp salad

This tasty spaghetti dish has basil, garlic, and olive oil. The cold salad was a perfect match: shrimp, tomatoes, white onions, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, and baby spinach. The soup is seaweed and bean sprouts. When the seaweed boils, it adds a certain thickness to the soup, but the seaweed—or more precisely, wakame—itself keeps its firmness (not mushy). The bean sprouts also remain delightfully crunchy in soup. The garlic content of the salad and pasta was perfect, although after-dinner mints were most certainly required. Fortunately, we didn’t have any important networking to do after dinner…

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