seeing green

We found out that we are going to close on Monday!  Woo-hoo!  Let the madness begin.  While we haven’t progressed in our packing endeavors, we did make a trip to drop off a load of furniture to the new place.  I also bought some quarts of paint to test the colors out and make sure they will work. 

At the moment I’m fighting off a viral URI (found out it’s not strep thank goodness!), but it’s been about 5 days and I’m hoping I’m half way through.  Plus that lovely time of the month has greeted me.  I guess they say when it rains it pours right? :)  I’m just looking through to the end of packing, moving, painting, flooring, getting settled, finishing finals and being able to . . . . RELAX!!  I see a little bit of light, but it’s in the distance.  Many thanks for all your kind words, I really appreciate it!

On to a lovely dinner . . .

Lemony Tofu Pesto Pasta   

Yield

4 servings (serving size: about 1 1/4 cups)

Ingredients

• 1 lb cherry tomatoes, halved and seeds squeezed out (I used TJ’s heirloom tomato mix)
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• Cooking spray
• 4  teaspoons  olive oil, divided
• 1/2  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper, divided
• 2  cups tightly packed fresh baby spinach (about 1 1/4 ounces)
• 1 1/2  cups cubed reduced-fat silken tofu (about 6 ounces, I only had firm on hand and it worked well)
• 1  cup packed fresh basil leaves
• 1/3 cup grated fresh Parmesan-Romano cheese blend
• 1  tablespoon rice wine vinegar
• 3/4  teaspoon  salt
• 2  garlic cloves, minced
• juice and zest from one medium lemon
• 4  cups  hot cooked whole wheat spaghetti (about 8 ounces uncooked)  We made fresh!  **Be sure to save 1/2 cup pasta water to thin sauce if needed.
• 3  tablespoons  pine nuts, toasted

Preparation

Preheat oven to 450°.

Place tomatoes, cut sides up, and mushrooms on a jelly-roll pan coated with cooking spray. Drizzle with 2 teaspoons oil; sprinkle evenly with 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper. Bake at 450° for 7 minutes or until tender.  Broil just until charred.

Combine remaining 2 teaspoons oil, remaining 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, spinach, tofu, and next 6 ingredients (through lemon) in a food processor; process until smooth.

Combine spinach mixture and cooked pasta in a large skillet; cook over low until thoroughly heated, stirring occasionally and adding pasta water if needed. Gently stir in tomatoes, mushrooms and toasted pine nuts; sprinkle with a bit of parmesan.  Enjoy!  We had the Bridlewood Chard featured here along with it.

This dish has about 300-350 kcals, 11g fat, 14g protein, and 44g Carbs

 

Here is the tower of pasta!  We like to place our pasta on this drying rack until we get ready to boil it all.  It helps it to rest and dries it out just a bit so they don’t all end up sticking to each other.  It’s also great if you want to dry the pasta out all the way and save for later.

 

 

A little close up . . . this dish was very refreshing!

 

I haven’t forgot about the demo site giveaway!!  I am planning to close the entry at the end of April and announce 5 winners with their choice of a 1GB hard drive or 3 iTunes downloads.  So there’s still time, I’d love to hear your feedback on the site survey!