Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Fettucine with Fresh Corn Pesto

Alright, I have neglected my blog for over a month… I have even wondered if I’d write in it again? But due to my DOGS (Dear old Grandparents) inquiry of where I’ve been, I am now back! People asking me to post another recipe seems to be the only motivating factor these days! In NY, blogging was somewhat therapeutic and I always had an interesting story to share. Nowadays, life is more routine and stable to say in the least, I don’t run into as much crazy weather, crazy people on the subways, or have crazy hours of working late at the restaurant. Now my hours at the store are scheduled which is nice, and I come home in perfect timing to cook dinner.


The only thing I can say is that working at the store has changed my (political) views a bit (hello real world) and made me more ugggghhh annoyed with our government. Now that I’m living at home for a bit, I do get my nightly dose of the news, so I am getting (slowly but surely) a little bit more education about government spending and about our terrible debt. Well now I get it. SO MANY PEOPLE COME IN WITH FOOD STAMPS! It’s shocking, tax payers are paying for these “poor people” to buy Red Bull. Yes, we are paying for them to get super expensive and a super unhealthy energy beverage. As well as paying for them to buy Coca-Cola, Fruit Loops, biscuits, and doughnuts. I mean these people aren’t only spending 20 bucks, they can spend up to 300 dollars at times. I don’t know the policy of food stamps per se, except that the more kiddies you have the more you get. Have you seen what a 300 dollars crap filled cart looks like?! Almost overflowing the first one, sometimes these people need a second cart to get all their junk food. And the biggest kicker is people with buy beer and cigs with cash after their food stamp purchase; I mean these people aren’t trying to save and scrap as I’d like them to be! As well as we cash many welfare checks, heating assistance, and housing assistance. It’s truly awing how much people seek help from the government; I mean I really had NO idea until I started working at the store. I know it hasn’t always been like this and that Obama has had some doing with increasing food stamp benefits and of course our worse than ever debt in the country. So yes I am a little bitter about all this tax money being spent to buy junk. I think some help is necessary, but I think these people have way too much. It fits in perfectly with that saying, “Give him and inch and he’ll take a mile.” So I think the government should back off just a bit with these benefits or at least monitor them more carefully. Anyhow, this is my point of view and I’d like to hear your opinion of all this.

On a happier note, I have a wonderful Fettucine with Fresh Corn Pesto recipe for you. I have made this twice and the second time, it occurred to me I should blog about this. I’m terrible about taking pictures when I cook, culinary school has ingrained in me the ability to multitask, and often I have 3 things going at a time and I simply don’t think of stopping to take pictures of each step. This recipe is so flavorful with the bacon, corn, and basil. This is perfect for a simple dinner at home (hello leftovers!) and I think especially good for a big crowd because it is so simple and impressive.

There are some changes to the recipe I made, which included using whole wheat pasta and upping the garlic to 3 cloves and I just cooked it a bit with the corn. The second time I cooked this, I used toasted walnuts with was phenomenal (pine nuts are incredibly expensive right now!) I added shrimp to the pasta the second time and I think it made it even better, but optional for sure.



Pasta garnished with bacon, toasted walnuts, and grated parmesan

Mother’s Day is coming up and I hope everyone gets to cook their mom a great meal!

1 comment:

  1. Wow, Michelle-- I've neglected my blog reading for a while, but this is a good one!

    The welfare thing is crazy, huh? I mean, I completely understand giving people who are legitimately struggling a little assistance, but they should only be able to purchase real food with it. And maybe there should be some sort of finance or personal budgeting classes required for everyone on welfare.

    Most people have no idea how to manage money, how to save, how to meal plan, and so on. If the government really wanted to help people, it would give them the tools to take care of themselves, not just throwing money at them to let them not work and feed their families garbage.

    It's sort of insane. I never realized that you could buy whatever you want with food stamps. That's a damn shame.

    Here in Austin, all of the farmers markets accept food stamps, which I think is really cool. There are a lot of programs that teach nutrition and cooking, which I also really love.

    Keep 'em coming, I miss you!

    ReplyDelete