An Italian-Style Feast

Mid-summer farmers’ market ingredients make cooking delicious meals easy. Last Sunday I took advantage of all of my great market buys to put together a very quick, healthy Italian style dinner.

I started with my basil walnut pesto which, in my humble opinion, is some of the best pesto I have ever had. I can’t even be around it because I want to eat the entire bowl, all by itself. I like using walnuts because they seem richer and more buttery to me and also because they are a lot cheaper than pine nuts.

This pesto included:

2 cups basil, torn into pieces

around 1/4 cup Parmigiano cheese

2 handfuls chopped walnuts

3 large cloves garlic

olive oil, enough to make the pesto into a nice smooth paste

I started by adding the walnuts, garlic, and cheese to the food processer. I whirled those items around until they were completely blended together. Then I slowly added basil and oil, a handful of basil, a drizzle of oil, process, and repeat until all of the basil has been used and all of the ingredients are combined. It should look like this.

If you prefer thinner pesto, stream in more oil as you are processing the mixture.

While I was making the pesto, I was boiling several cups of chopped red potatoes until fully cooked. In the last 2 minutes of cooking, I added in chunks of summer squash so they cooked but were not mushy.

I then tossed the hot potatoes and squash with about 1/4 cup of pesto until everything was coated. I left this salad to cool down to room temperature while I prepped the main course.

For my cod with tomatoes, I chopped two large tomatoes and sprinkled the pieces over two fresh cod fillets. To that I added salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, and a few spoons of olive oil and let them cook through. These fillets cooked quickly which was nice because the tomatoes stayed intact and didn’t get too liquid-y.

The potato and squash salad was a perfect compliment to the light fish. I paired this dinner with a summery Belle Vallee Pinot Gris and ate it out on the deck to enjoy a hot summer evening.

While it is a beautiful summer weekend, I have definitely noticed it getting darker earlier and am seeing lots of back to school stuff. I am going to try to make the most of the rest of the summer and to enjoy every minute. Here are some of my “Savor Summer” plans:

• A bachelorette party on a boat. . . today!
• Our 4th wedding anniversary dinner at Craigie on Main Wednesday
• Newport Winefest next weekend
• An after work run with one of my oldest friends
• A North End blogger event
• The Copley Farmers’ Market every Tuesday and Friday
• Sitting out on my deck as often as possible
• Tax free weekend wine tasting at The Urban Grape
• Walks around Castle Island
• Kayaking on the Charles

What are your “Savor Summer” plans?