16 ounces tortellini
1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
3/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, oil packed
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
water

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook the tortellini.
2. Meanwhile, place basil, Parmesan, garlic and sun-dried tomatoes in a blender. Pulse until broken apart, then gradually incorporate the olive oil until you have a smooth paste.
3. Drain pasta and toss with prepared pesto. Serve with more Parmesan cheese if desired.

Makes 4 servings

It's really hard for me to work up the energy to make dinner when Shannon is not here, we don't really have any groceries and I get home at 7pm. I almost decided just to put it off and somehow make it up again in the future. Luckily, I mustered up the energy to go to the store, pick up a few things and create something delicious with things kicking around the fridge.

I haven't made a lot of pasta dishes mostly for this reason; it's nice to have a backup plan. When all things go awry, pasta is a good standby. It's half the reason (the other half being deliciousness) that I made so many noodle bowls not too long ago. For a moment, I had the ambition to make homemade Ravioli, but since I've already done that I figured I'd just go with the store bought stuff. Man, fresh pasta sure is expensive considering it's just eggs and flour. I bought a small package of fagioli and it was 5 bucks!

I swear it was called fagioli. I also swear that fagioli is actually Italian for beans. These were like a hybrid of tortellini and flat farfalle (the bowtie ones) filled with zucchini, eggplant, cheese and other spices. Pretty tasty. I can't actually find evidence now to prove that they were called fagioli, but I also can't find another pasta with a similar name and shape, so I'm going to stick with that. I'm just going to call them tortellini for now because I don't know for sure. There are way too many names for pasta and it's kind of scary that I know so many.

I find sun-dried tomatoes to have a really great flavor. There's a weird threshold for my taste buds and sun-dried tomatoes too. If eaten whole, there's a very definitive point where they're delicious to where they're disgusting. I have the same thing with chocolate. The first piece is divine and it all goes downhill from there before it's actually quote revolting. Anyhow, sun-dried tomatoes make a really great pesto and I especially like how they help to thicken it, taking the place of pine nuts, which are incredibly expensive. All in all this turned out to be a really good dish and I'm quite happy that I made it. It also allowed me to use my blender again!