All Things Italian

They're showing my favorite movie, "Gladiator" on TNT as I write this. I can't even type I'm so giddy with excitement. And no, I don't need you all to look down upon me for liking this cheesy movie, but I LOVE it. And Maximus is my favorite name. No discussions, that's that.

     Anyway, speaking of Gladiator, Europe and cheese...our little San Diego has a little Italy with the best gelato place (Cafe Italiano) that I need to dedicate a whole blog to, so I won't go there, but Sanjay and I did visit Little Italy a couple of weekends back since it was their little Festa (or festival) with the gesso artists' paintings all down India Street. It also helps that they named a street after our country so we go there as if Indians need to be represented on India Street in Little Italy.
     Yes, it isn't NYC or Boston, but hey, we have Italians here, and the fried foods, the pizzas, cannolis...all things so bad and yet so good...yes, they were all there too. We were good though, we just walked around, but come on, it's Festa and it's Little Italy. Succumb we did. To Cafe Zucchero. Their napoleans, fried iris, chocolate cheesecakes...everything decadent.
     But the prime attraction were the paintings--these are chalk art pieces drawn the same day and erased the next. And were they gorgeous. Here are a few:

If you didn't know any better, you'd think this was real...or at least an oil painting, right?

And this one was gorgeous--you can see the street crack through it too, and yet it's quite something!

     What with all things Italiano, I came home in the spirit of Italy and pulled out everything I could to make an Italian meal. Of course we had only 5 basil leaves, no pine nuts, hardly any cheese...Murphy's law, right? Wrong. This was my turn to twist all the Indian ingredients I had into a somewhat Italian meal.

Orzo with pesto sauce, and olives. How's that?

Pesto Sauce:

Note: I substituted coriander leaves instead of basil, walnuts instead of pine nuts. I'm sure you can try the same with almonds, though the taste will be slightly different.

Ingredients

5 cups chopped coriander leaves

1 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup Parmeggiano Reggiano

5 cloves garlic

1 medium green chili pepper

1 tsp ground pepper

salt to taste

Recipe

Mix above ingredients in a blender and slowly pour olive oil while blending till the mixture becomes a thick paste. Use it as a spread, or in your favorite pasta. Store leftover pesto sauce in an airtight container in the fridge for 2 weeks or so.

Now, once the pesto sauce was made, I rummaged through our many plastic containers and discovered we had a packet of orzo pasta. Orzo looks somewhat like rice, and precisely for that reason, the rice foodie that I am, orzo is one of my favorite pastas. I haven't tried to make anything else besides Italian pasts dishes with orzo, but I have a strong feeling I soon will. When I do, I'll let you know.

Till then, here's my recipe for Orzo Pasta--

Ingredients

2 cups cooked orzo pasta

1/2 cup chopped purple onions

2 cloves garlic

3 tbsp parmeggiano reggiano

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

2 tbsp chopped olives (black or green, your choice)

2 tbsp olive oil

3-4 tbsp pesto sauce

salt to taste

Recipe

• Heat the oil in a skillet, add in onions, and garlic till they brown
• Add the pasta, coat it with the oil
• Follow that with the olives
• Season with salt and pepper
• Mix in the pesto sauce, remove from flame
• Follow that with cheese, your choice, how much
• Serve with a healthy sprinkle of cheese, black pepper and maybe more pesto sauce

Note: You can add in chicken, shrimp or vegetables like bell peppers, tomatoes and such to the orzo too

     This is my effort--

And yes, I used black olives because I LOVE Trader Joe's sliced black olives. Nothing could be better unless you get olives from Italy. Nothing...except maybe "Gladiator".

 While we're still in Italy, here are a few more gesso paintings.

Enjoy!