Oh, look! A new post! Sorry about the blogging hiatus, my day job has been occupying all of my blogging time and energy.

Anyway, over the weekend Brandon and I made a delicious dinner, that was also extremely photogenic. It was also very popular with my Instagram followers, including a recipe request. So, here it is:

A few months ago we planted a “basil-mint” plant with our fig tree, in hopes that planting them together would be mutually beneficial. Our experiment has been somewhat successful, although I don’t know if it’s my master gardening skills or the combination of sun and rain the garden has been getting.

Our basil-mint bush

We definitely won’t have figs this year (although the tree has doubled in size since last year!) and we have more than enough basil mint. This stuff is great. It tastes like basil and is hearty like mint. It also spreads like crazy. We cut off a whole stalk of basil and used Brandon’s Dad’s not-so-secret recipe to make the pesto (see below).

Basil-mint pesto

We took the extra time to make pasta from scratch for this dinner, and it was well worth it. We used our pasta maker with the rigatoni attachment. The pasta was perfect.

Homemade rigatoni

While we let the pasta dough rest, we sauteed Italian sausage ground turkey LINK and peas. Once the noodles were cooked, we added them to the meat and peas, added a touch of pesto and some parmesan. Voila! Dinner!

Delicious! Our basil-mint pesto final product

Brandon’s Dad’s Pesto Recipe 

(Yield: 1 3/4 cups, 4 servings)

• 2 c. fresh basil
• 3/4 c. Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 c. chopped hazelnuts (Or any nut, really. We used pine nuts this with this pesto)
• 2 large cloves garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• 2/3 c. olive oil

Put all ingredients in the blender until preferred consistency is reached. You can add a squeeze of lemon to help hold the color, but don’t add too much or it will flavor the pesto. Use immediately or place in an airtight container. Refrigerate pesto up to one week or freeze up to six months.