I decided a nice vegetable laden pasta salad was in order. Sure boiling the water is a bit hot and steamy, but its pretty quick. I actually used the water twice to maximize its cooking awesome, and I made sure to cover my pot to reduce the steam escaping into the air.
I set my pot of water, with a bit of sea salt to boil and stemmed some old kale. Once the water was boiling I dropped in the kale and immediately set up a bowl of ice water. After about 1 minute (the time it took to ready the ice water) I used tongs to pull out the kale. I swished it to evenly cool it. I then dumped a box of high protein pasta in the still boiling, now slightly green water.
While the pasta cooked, I drained the kale (including really squeezing it out) and put it in the food processor - I'll come back to it later. In the meantime I chopped 4 small carrots and 1 medium zucchini and placed them in the sieve. I also chopped half an onion and set aside, and 1 garlic scape which joined the kale in the food processor.
When the pasta was done I poured it and its boiling water into the sieve over the carrots and zucchini. I let then sit for a moment to let the veggies just ever so slightly soften up from the heat as I turned back to the food processor. To the kale and garlic scape, I added a handful of almonds, some Parmesan cheese, about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and some fresh cracked black pepper. I processed it, occasionally scraping down the sides, for about 3 minutes until it was a nice smooth pesto.
I dumped the pasta and veggies into a large bowl, added the chopped onion and then about half to 3/4 of my pesto and stirred it all up, with a bit of salt.
We ate it warm that night, but the remainder was put in the refrigerator and enjoyed cold over the next few days. The remaining pesto in the meantime is handy as dip, or a sandwich spread.
Pasta Salad
1 bunch kale
4 small carrots
1 medium zucchini
1 garlic scape
1/2 large onion
handful of almonds
about 2 cubic inches of Parmesan cheese
about 2 tbsp of olive oil
salt & pepper
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