I Will Never Stop

What will I never stop? I will never stop trying new pasta recipes. I have so many amazing pasta recipes up my sleeve...but there are always so many more fantastic ones to discover! It never gets old. I love discovering new recipes.

This one is particularly quick, easy, and flavorful. It is a recipe by Giada De Laurentiis that I saw in one of my Food Network email newsletters.

I hope you like it as much as I did!

Penne with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto

Ingredients:

12 ounces penne pasta
1 (8.5-ounce) jar sun-dried tomatoes packed in olive oil
2 garlic cloves
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup (packed) fresh basil leaves
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Directions:

Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Drain, reserving 1 cup of the cooking liquid.

Meanwhile, blend the sun-dried tomatoes and their oil, garlic, salt and pepper, to taste, and basil in a food processor and blend until the tomatoes are finely chopped. Transfer the tomato mixture to a large bowl. Stir in the Parmesan.

Add the pasta to the pesto and toss to coat, adding enough reserved cooking liquid to moisten. Season the pasta, to taste, with salt and pepper and serve.

Source: As mentioned above, this is a recipe by Giada De Laurentiis, found on Food Network. You can find it here.

Notes: Holy moly ravioli, this was good! So easy too. I don't have a food processor, so I used my blender. It worked fine (though I did have to shake it and mix it with a spoon to get it all to blend). I also added the reserved pasta water to the pesto (it was still plenty thick, but it helped it to blend better in my blender). I also used a full pound of pasta (16 ounces) instead of 12 ounces (I also cooked it according to package directions, which was 10-11 minutes rather than 8 minutes). There was still plenty of pesto to coat the noodles. I really loved it. I can't wait to have some leftovers tomorrow!

 

Above: Sorry. This is not a single serving. :) This is the whole recipe in a large serving bowl. I wouldn't advise eating this much by yourself...though when you taste it, you will be tempted to do so!