Fusilli with Sun-dried Tomato Pesto

It's been busy past few days with lots of cooking for customers and baking a birthday cake. I've hardly had the time to sit down and write a post. Today has been a little more relaxing and easy going. I was in no mood to cook anything elaborate and made a pasta dish for lunch.

A jar of sun-dried tomatoes has been sitting in my refrigerator for a long time now and every time hubby peeks into the fridge, he sighs and says "when are you going to use this?". I had used a little of it for the Sun-dried Tomato Focaccia last week. I finally used a large portion of it today, and the jar is almost half empty; I made Sun-dried Tomato pesto. Goes great with just about anything...pasta, in a sandwich or even in a soup..totally jazzes up the dish.

Sun-dried Tomato Pesto :

You will need:

1 Cup Sun-dried tomato, julienned, in oil

¼ cup Dried Basil (or use 1 ½ cups fresh Basil)

½ cup Grated Parmesan

3 cloves Garlic

Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup Olive oil

Place the sun-dried tomatoes, basil, garlic, salt and pepper in the bowl of a food processor. Turn the processor on and slowly stream in the olive oil. Continue processing till the tomatoes are finely chopped. Stir in the grated parmesan. Transfer pesto to a bowl.

Fusili with Sun-dried Tomato Pesto:

You will need:

2 Cups dried Fusilli, Penne or any ridged dry pasta

1 quart water

Salt

1/2 cup prepared Sun-dried tomato pesto

Bring water to a boil. Add salt and dried pasta. Cook for 12 minutes; till pasta is done.

Drain pasta and reserve 1/4 cup of the cooking liquid. Toss the pasta with the Pesto and the cooking liquid.Add more salt if required. We had the pasta with store bought Garlic bread.

Pour a thin layer of olive oil on the pesto and store in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.