I am on a pesto kick today! I finally went to the grocery store this morning and decided to make something different using the leftover pesto. I knew I wanted it to be a pasta dish, and I knew I wanted to include cherry tomatoes, but I wanted a special green. I thought about spinach or arugula, but eventually decided broccoli rabe would be a fun and challenging choice. I have never cooked broccoli rabe before, so I decided to jump right in and let it cook down in some olive oil and kosher salt for about ten minutes.
The rabe before cooking down.
After about ten minutes, the rabe had cooked down a ton, and I added cherry tomatoes, garlic and crushed red pepper. I also added a squirt of tomato paste but I don’t really think it did much. Maybe I should have used more?
Teeny tiny stove. I had to transfer the rabe and tomatoes to another pan because the stove top couldn’t fit two big pans 
Oh, NYC apartments.
I mixed the pesto into the pasta before using a slotted spoon to transfer the veggies. The cherry tomatoes burst while being cooked and created some sauce at the bottom. I added a little bit to the pasta but left the rest so it wouldn’t get watery.
I added some parmigiano on top.
The verdict: for being a non-recipe recipe, this was pretty good! It took about 40 minutes including clean up (not that long, considering I have about 3 leftover portions), but you could definitely do it even faster if you have a normal-sized kitchen and you were boiling the pasta water as the veggies were sauteeing. The sweetness of the tomatoes really evened out the bitterness of the rabe. The pesto flavor was nice but I think I would have needed more for it to really come through. It tasted great on bites of pasta, but did not really cover the veggies. All in all, I think this was a healthy, interesting concoction!
Bag o’ groceries from earlier:
- Bananas
- Grapes
- Broccoli rabe
- Cherry tomatoes
- Lettuce mix
- Avocado
- Lime
- Eggs
- Salsa
- Tortilla chips
- Eli Zabar wheat loaf
I have to do some work this afternoon and then I’m going to see Shutter Island later tonight. Kind of scared!!
