Pesto Sauce

Serves 4-6

This recipe is the best recipe that I have found for making pesto. It takes about 20-25 minutes of solid chopping, but is well worth it. More accurate ingredient quantities are as follows:

• 2 cups of firmly chopped basil
• 3 medium cloves of garlic (use 2 if you do not like the taste of raw garlic)
• scant 1/4 cup of raw pine nuts
• roughly 3/4 cup parmesan
• 3-4 T extra virgin olive oil
• salt to taste
• reserved pasta-cooking water

A few notes on this recipe.

• It is NOT necessary to ensure that the ingredients are fully chopped in the first few rounds of chopping. This is especially true when you are chopping the basil.
• Do not use whole wheat pasta with pesto. Pesto is simply too delicate a flavor and can't stand up to the coarse taste of whole wheat.
• Fresh pasta is recommended
• Add freshly chopped tomatoes or sausage
• You may freeze any pesto you don't use. Make sure you cover it thinly with more olive oil. When defrosting DO NOT microwave.

Corn and Feta Salad

Serves 2-4

• 1 pound frozen corn, defrosted
• 1/4 pound good quality feta
• 1/2 cup diced red onions, 1/4" dice
• 2-3 T. very finely minced jalapeno
• 2-4 T minced cilantro
• Juice of one lime
• Kosher salt to taste
  

Mix all ingredients together. Add salt to taste.

Good with seared tuna, or with barbecued chicken, or BBQ chicken pizza.

Cumin-Seared Tuna with Jalapenos

Serves 2

• 1 pound very fresh tuna
• 2 jalapenos
• cumin
• kosher salt
• white pepper
• Sesame oil

Slice jalapenos as thinly as you can, no more than 1 millimeter thick. It is more important that the jalapenos be thin than that they be complete circles. If you have a mandolin, use it.

Pat dry tuna with paper towels. Liberally sprinkle salt, pepper and cumin on each side of the tuna steaks. Pat spices firmly only the tuna.

Heat a pan to very hot. Add sesame oil and allow it to get very hot, too. Add tuna, sear on each side for 1 minute.

Remove steaks from pan and slice across the grain into 1/4" slices. Arrange on plates, serve a bowl of jalapeno slices with each.

Appetizer variation. Take each slice and cut it up further, into 1" square slices. Place tuna on a serving platter, add a jalapeno slice on each piece of tuna. 1 pound of tuna will serve around 20 people.