Cooking Out of the Pantry Part IV

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So today these are the things I got used from the pantry.  Notice, there is prepared pesto.  I prefer to make my own, but when Classico is BOGO, I always pick some up.  It’s really quite good and sometimes I don’t have access to fresh basil (it’s so hot that my plants seeded then died) and in a pinch, you can stir some into just about anything, as you’ll soon see.

I decided to make some hummus for snacking, sandwiches, etc, so I used the basic recipe, tahini, chickpeas, lemon juice water, garlic, throw the garlic in the processor (just whole peeled cloves) and process, add the chickpeas, process till almost smooth, add tahini (to taste, it truly doesn’t matter much – just depends on how you like it), then lemon juice, water if necessary and whatever flavoring you might want to add.  If you want a more “proper” recipe you can check my Roasted Eggplant and Garlic Hummus.

I did this in two batches.  To the first batch I added a couple of spoonfuls of pesto and processed one more time.

To the second batch, I picked a large pepper from some leftover chipotles in adobo, chopped it fine, added it to the processor along with a little of the adobo juice and process.  (This one is Travis’ favorite)

But.  I still needed to make dinner.

2 boxes whole grain penne
2 heads of broccoli (cut the florets and freeze the stalks in a ziploc bag to use for a stock – we’re going to experiment with that before the end of next week)
Olive Oil
5 cloves of garlic chopped
2 cups vegetable broth
a whole lot of marinated sun dried tomatoes.

I put up a large pot of generously salted water to boil, cook the pasta according to package directions but set the time for two minutes before the pasta will be done.  At the two minutes left point, add the broccoli to the pasta and water and allow to cook for the remaining two minutes.

Drain into a colander and then put the empty pot back on the stove.

At this point, I had a bit of an emergency.  I realized that I had no olive oil in the house other than the $22 a bottle blood orange extra virgin.  With a heavy heart, I decided that I didn’t have a choice but to use it.  I thought that the flavor would get lost and worse, might even ruin the dish – but I decided to try.

Heat the pot back up, add the oil and when it’s hot, add the garlic.  Cook for a minute or two until you can smell the garlic filling the room (I think that must be what heaven smells like, you know?).  Anyway, at that point, add the vegetable broth and allow to boil for a while.  Maybe 5 minutes.  You want it to condense a little – not much, but just a little.

Add the pasta and broccoli back to the pot, add lots of the sun dried tomatoes and toss well, but gently.

I have to tell you, the orange oil that I was so concerned about, was amazing!  This was like Blood Orange Scented penne, broccoli, garlic and sun dried tomato.  It’s way too expensive to do this very often, but it was everything I could do not to wear it like perfume. And it tasted amazing.

I’m making some great progress with this pantry, but now I have to go buy olive oil and salt.  I’m out.

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