Better late than never: Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  We had a pretty leisurely day– we were supposed to get up and run/walk in Seattle’s St. Pat’s Dash, but it was raining pretty hard and started snowing, so we opted to stay in bed a bit longer and run on the treadmill instead.  Probably one of the best moves we’ve made.

Wearing our Dash shirts, we opted to stay in, crack open some Guinness and make a very green meal at home.

I discovered Kevin and Amanda’s blog and combined their tribute to the Pioneer Woman’s Pesto Cream sauce with Eating Well’s fettuccine with mushrooms and basil. The result was a bit lighter and fantastic!

First, I made the basil, per their instructions:

Simple pesto: basil, shredded parmesan, pine nuts, garlic, salt, pepper and some drizzled olive oil. So good I could have eaten it all by itself!

Homemade pasta

Once the pesto was made, we made some fettuccine with our favorite Kitchen Aid pasta attachment. It’s so easy and so good.  While the pasta was drying, we sauteed some sliced chicken breasts and shiitake mushrooms.

Sauce, pre-pesto, cream and butter

We cooked the pasta and added the pesto, cream and a wee bit of Irish butter to the sauce and voila! Happy St. Patty’s day!

YUM! St. Patrick's Day style