This Girl Cooks

One of the best cooking tips that I know is to always keep a container of pesto in the house. You can either make your own or buy it - I get mine from either Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s - both are excellent. There’s so much you can do with pesto. I love making salad dressings or last minute pasta dishes out of it.  So, I thought I’d share with all of you some of the many things you can do with pesto.

• Make salad dressing. Stir together 2 tbs olive oil, 1 tbs vinegar, and one teaspoon of pesto for a delicious salad dressing.

• Use it as a marinade. You can prepare the dressing, above, and actually use it to marinate meat or chicken. You can also spread the pesto on chicken, seafood such as salmon, or steak before grilling or baking.

• Quick pasta dish. Toss pesto in with some pasta. I like using ziti or rotini but you can use anything. Sometimes I mix in a small amount of tomato sauce and cream.

• Roasted vegetables. Roast vegetables such zucchini and eggplant. (Sprinkle vegetables with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Spread them out on a baking sheet, and bake for 45 minutes.) When vegetables are done, transfer to a serving bowl and toss with pesto.

• Spread for crackers and bread. This is much tastier than butter! I like to spread the pesto directly onto those Wasa crackers or on a piece of whole wheat bread.

• Pesto Cheese Dip. You can mix 2 tbs of pesto with 8 ounces cream cheese for a quick cheese dip.

Do you have any ideas for things you can do with pesto? Share them in the comments!

Sometimes, there just isn’t time to make a healthy supper from scratch. So, I need to raid the pantry or freezer. There are plenty of canned soups and prepackaged, frozen meals that are healthy. But, they always seem to be missing something. To me, they’re bland. They lack that personalized touch that makes home cooking so great.

My way of getting past that is to put the food on a pretty dish or bowl and garnish it or add extra ingredients to give it a homemade feel. Here’s a few examples of what I mean:

• Canned Soups. To spice up canned soups, I heat the soups up in a saucepan. While it’s warming, I take some time to chop up some fresh herbs. My favorites are chives and parsley (but I never use both). I also like to use scallions. Pour the soup in a bowl when it’s down and garnish with the fresh herbs.
• Frozen Meals. Warm up the meal according to the package directions. Remove food from the tray and place in a plate or bowl. Garnish with chopped, fresh herbs.
• Mac and Cheese. I once helped my sister make her packaged mac and cheese seem homemade. So, we cut up some scallions and mixed it in after the it was all prepared.

You can make anything seem homemade by garnishing with fresh herbs. You can also add extra ingredients. For example, you can add cooked chicken to a canned vegetable soup or extra cheddar cheese to a packaged mac and cheese.