Hi Everyone!
I’m so sorry for the lack of content we have been sharing lately! Life is just a little busy for us now with work, friends, and family! Still busy, but I wanted to stop by to write a quick post about the arugula pesto recipe we discovered on the back of our Trader Joe’s wild arugula packaging! Who knew you could find such a legit & delicious recipe on a packaging?! I feel like those recipes featured are usually super complicated but this one is so simple and the words “ARUGULA PESTO” caught my eye! Eve and I try to avoid pesto when we can (sometimes it’s hard not to because we love it so much!) because it usually contains garlic and we get really really bloated when we eat garlic. Don’t get me wrong, we ABSOLUTELY LOVE garlic and can eat it with every meal! We used to eat whole raw garlic cloves with dumplings our grandpa hand wrapped because it’s a common Chinese yummy thing to do especially in his province in ShanDong, China! We still sneak in a few pieces of garlic here and there, but just very rarely so we don’t upset our stomach. So to my pleasant surprise, this pesto recipe did NOT contain garlic and it was so easy I had to try it! I kept thinking I needed A LOT to feed my family of four (dad, Eve, baby brother since mama is still in Asia). But you really don’t need that much pesto to flavor your pasta. I made one batch, then I made another batch but DOUBLED it in size to make a total of… 3 BATCHES! This was way way way too much so we’ll be eating arugula pesto pasta for the next few meals, haha! Here is the recipe below and enjoy! Looks like my “short” post turned into a rather lengthy one! Since I mentioned my grandpa, I also wanted to share a picture of him in his memory. ❤️ We miss you 爺爺！
Arugula Pesto
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups of arugula (about 4 ounces)
2 3/4 teaspoons of course or Kosher salt
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
freshly ground pepper to taste
Method:
1. Prep a medium sized bowl with ice and water and set aside. Fill a medium sized saucepan with water and 2-1/2 teaspoons of salt and bring to a boil. Add the arugula. As soon as the water returns to a boil, remove the arugula and place it immediately into the ice water to stop the cooking process.
2. Transfer the arugula to several layers of paper towels. Roll up the towels and squeeze as much moisture as possible from the arugula.
3. Place the arugula in a blender and add the olive oil, 1/4 teaspoon of salt and sprinkle in some fresh ground pepper and puree until the mixture looks like thick pesto. Use immediately or transfer the mixture to a mason jar if you’d like to store it. This will keep for at least 5 days, refrigerated. Before using, stir the pesto (or shake the mason jar) to blend the oil accumulated at the top.
4. Serve arugula pesto over fresh pasta, spread on bread or use any way you’d use traditional pesto!
P.S. SUCCESS!!! I baked drumsticks for the first time ever and it turned out so delicious and juicy!! I don’t really like to cook anything chicken because it always ends up super dry and yucky but I guess drumsticks are a lot easier! But also not as healthy as chicken breast hehe but it was SO darn good even Papa Yen approved and went for seconds!
xx Elisa