Green

My brother's little basil plant.

I used to think that there are only two types of pasta sauce: creamy and tomato-ey. Then I learned that there is white-wine sauce, aglio olio (garlic and olive oil, pretty much no sauce...), squid ink sauce as well as pesto sauce (huh?). I first heard about green pesto from a health-conscious colleague while talking about food.

She: Cream sauce is actually very unhealthy. The healthiest type of pasta sauce is...
Me: Tomato based sauce!
She: ... pesto sauce. Wah, my favourite!
Me: ?? pesto?? You mean the brand, Prego's?
She: No, i mean pesto. It's green colour, made of herbs. Mmmm.. yummy!
Me: ?????

I forgot all about the pesto sauce until one day, I was ogling at the ham and cheese selection at Jason's supermarket, when the sundried tomatoes, semi-sundried tomatoes, hummus and pesto sauce caught my eye. I toyed with the idea of buying some pesto to try it out, but the lovely semi-sundried tomatoes were too tempting, so I bought that instead. And I forgot about pesto again, until one evening when my brother and I were watching Jamie Olivier on TV effortlessly whipping up his delicious dishes. This time, he did a pesto pasta--pounded herbs with garlic, doused it with olive oil, added a shower of parmesan cheese etc etc... Greens never looked so good.

As usual, I forgot about it, but my brother didn't. He bought spinach, harvested his little basil plant, pounded in pistachios, added cream cheese and blended it all together with salt and olive oil. Viola! Pesto sauce! "I made my own pesto sauce today and I'm prett-y proud of it. It tastes prett-y good. There's some left in the fridge, help yourself. Oh, and I realised that it goes surprisingly well with tofu. It's slightly salty though," said he.

Let me tell you a bit more about my brother, the health nut. His colleagues are on a mission to make him flabby by tempting him with all the sinful yummy stuff like char kuey tiao and cream puffs, but he has always politely declined, saying that "it's unhealthy." When they ask him what type of food does he enjoy, he thinks about it and replies in all honesty, "Healthy food." And then there's the issue of salt. There were a few times when I complained that the pasta I cooked was too bland, but to him, it was just nice. Sometimes when he cooks, he'd say "today's sauce is a bit too saltish" but I'd think it's okay. Needless to say, when we cook together, salt is often a point of contention.
(Me: "There needs to be more salt!"
He: "No, it's salty enough already."
Me: *adds a dash of salt when he's not looking*)

Back to the pesto sauce. I was having dinner home alone tonight and the only available quick-fix meal was Tofu Pesto Pasta *cringe*. Don't get me wrong, I like tofu, but usually as a side dish. Tofu as a main ingredient in a meal? As the ONLY main ingredient? My brother liked it, but then again, he gets a kick out of eating healthy food, which is something that doesn't happen naturally to me. However, I have been pigging out on all sorts of unhealthy food, and will continue to do so since CNY is just around the corner, so perhaps my tummy will benefit from something light and healthy instead. Tofu pesto pasta, here I come.

My green dinner.

I decided to do the whole hog and have a healthy dessert while I'm at it. The taste verdict? The pesto does taste pretty yummy, and it doesn't mask the subtle taste of tofu, but it's still a rather bland dish. I added a shower of parmesan cheese as well as a pinch of salt with sauteed onions and red chilli, which thankfully added some flavour. It tasted just o-kaaay to me, as opposed to my brother's verdict of "prett-y good". The best part of the meal was the dessert, which was juicy and oh-so-sweet.

Considering the fact that my brother is pretty flab free and I'm not, perhaps I should do this more often.