recipe // smoky minestrone with tortellini and pesto

recipe // smoky minestrone with tortellini and pesto

This minestrone recipe is a great standby I found on Food52. It’s hearty and packed full of vegetables, with some bacon thrown in to give it the smoky quality in its name. Be prepared for a lot of chopping, but from start to finish this only takes me a little over an hour to make, including the 30-40 minute simmering time. As the recipe suggests, this is great served with fresh basil pesto on top, a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and some Parmesan cheese, with some good bread on the side. Continue reading

recipe // butternut squash soup with pumpkin seed-mint pesto

This is a great fall recipe from Sunset. They suggest serving it in mini pumpkins, and using fresh pumpkin instead of squash, but I was not feeling that ambitious for a post-work meal. Instead, I used the pre-cut butternut squash from Trader Joe’s (2 bags of it, to be exact), an immersion blender to puree the soup, and a food processor to make the pesto, and in under an hour was serving it up in perfectly acceptable ceramic bowls with a side of olive bread. Continue reading