Pesto Pasta with Shrimp, Vegetables and Prosciutto

For the most part I have free reign when it comes to making the foods we eat. Larry just says “we have this down to use” but offers no other suggestions. My response is SWEET!!!!! This was one of those times. We had shrimp down, but Larry didn’t give me any indications of how he wanted it.

I just love pesto. It’s one of my favorite types of sauces. I had made some earlier, but I didn’t think I had enough to make a meal for both of us, so of course I made more. Usually I make my pesto with pine nuts or pignoli, but they are getting so expensive, that I chose not to this time, although my original batch was made with pine nuts. For my extra batch, I used toasted pecans instead, to give it an even nuttier, more rustic flavor. Also, once again, the lemon verbena is beginning to take over my backyard, so I added some of that along with more basil, giving my pesto a real lemony spring flavor. In addition to the lemon verbena, I also added some lemon olive oil as well as the regular olive oil.

So now that the pesto is made, and I have more than enough for pasta, I needed to come up with other tasty ingredients to add. As you know, there is never any shortage of vegetables in our hose. We eat a wide variety of vegetables all the time. This time, I added some zucchini and crookneck, along with mushrooms, red onions, and my favorite little Peruvian peppers to the mix. And our main protein was shrimp, but I also had some prosciutto that I had as well. This was a last minute decision to spruce it up a bit. I liked it. A lot! This dish had a lot of layers and textures going on.

I cooked the shrimp first, then removed them and added the vegetables to the pan. Once the vegetables were cooked, I added the shrimp back to the mix. In a separate pan, I cooked the prosciutto in olive oil until it was crunchy. The angel hair pasta is also cooking. Once everything was ready, I just did my thing to make it all deliciously presentable.

I added some wine along with some of my jalapeno cheese bread, and dinner was complete. Jalapeno Cheese Bread !Mangia!

Keep it simple. Often times, those are the best meals. It doesn’t have to be fancy to be delicious. It just has to be made with love.

Stay safe, stay well and carry on. ‘Til next time.