Cream Dream

I had no game plan at the PathMark this week. I went in hoping to find inspiration in the fresh seasonal produce. All the vegetables were wilted and on their last leg. Maybe last week's storm prevented the trucks from delivering? Regardless, I ended up with mixed bags of things on sale with no clear idea of how they'd go together. But that can be good. Sometimes I come up with a new dish when I have to be creative.

Then this morning on my ride to work while the icy sleet was pelting me in the face I realized I forgot to thaw out the chicken thighs. Tragic. What a rookie move. So I came up with a quick one pot supper tonight using arugula pesto. P doesn't really do pasta, so I have to disguise it somewhat. And the pasta vegetable ratio has to be skewed.




I wanted everything to be green because all you see outside now is dirty snow, white skies and black puff jackets. I found baby asparagus at the fifteen dollar store so I chopped those up and mixed them with peas and made the arugula pesto using walnuts, thyme, parsley and chicken stock. I had some turkey sausage that I chopped into small cubes and fried up with the onions and garlic to get a little crisp, then mixed that with some bow-tie pasta. I added a 1/4 cup of non-fat ricotta while the pasta was hot and then the veggies and pesto. Kind of a little cream dream.




The bright green color is refreshing and the ricotta gives it just enough smoothness to make up for all the lost olive oil, although I did use some. It tastes like a rich cream sauce but its not at all. The asparagus still has some bite and the peas just melt with the sauce while the thyme gives it fresh flavor. I'm stuffed after a small bowl.