Foolproof Pesto
Ingredients
- Pesto
- 4 cups fresh cilantro, parsley or basil, washed, dried and stems removed
- 4 cloves garlic, peeled
- 1/2 cup almonds, walnuts, pine nuts or pumpkin seeds
- 2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan
- Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
- Prawns
- 2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 Tbsp butter
- 1 lb spot prawns, thawed if frozen
- 1/4 cup white wine
Instructions
- Put garlic and nuts in a food processor and process until the nuts are still a bit chunky. Add cilantro, parsley or basil and process to a coarse puree.
- Add oil in a thin stream while machine is running. Add lemon juice and Parmesan and pulse until everything is combined. Add pepper, pulse, then taste for saltiness. Then add salt, to your taste, and pulse one final time.
- To serve, leave about 1/8 cup (2 tablespoons) pasta water in the pot when you drain the pasta and mix pesto in.
- Makes about 1 cup pesto, enough for four generous servings.
For Spot Prawns Sauteed with Garlic and Wine
- Heat butter and oil in a large frying pan over medium-low heat. Add garlic and sauté just until the garlic is beginning to turn golden.
- Increase heat to medium and add prawns, shells and all. (If the pan isn’t big enough to fit all the prawns, cook them in batches, but remove garlic from the pan and reserve so that it doesn’t burn.) Flip prawns and cook them on the other side for 1 minute, until the shells look slightly browned and blistered.
- Pour in white wine and cook for a further minute, adding the garlic back in if you’ve removed it.
- Remove pan from heat. To serve, pile pasta onto four plates, arrange prawns on top, sprinkle Parmesan overtop and serve with more Parmesan at the table.
Notes
For serving
1 lb pasta of your choice, cooked until al dente (firm to the bite)
Extra grated Parmesan
My husband and I are on our last visit to my sister’s house in Parksville, on Vancouver Island. She is moving across the country and we’re helping her pack up her house. On November 26, she and I will get into her car, cross the Strait of Georgia in a ferry and pull onto the TransCanada Highway for the Sister’s Road Trip to Ontario, 2022.
There are so many goodbyes. We are in the house where my sister and her partner landed 11 years ago, after decades in the Yukon. My brother-in-law died in September 2021, and the house and especially the garden, his treasured domain, are filled with his presence. Everywhere in this world they built together—the raised beds, the bench underneath the willow, the firepit behind the cedar hedge they planted—we see the evidence of his creative and thoughtful husbandry, her imagination and hard work.
My sister’s goodbyes are many and private as she embarks on the next phase of her life. I have a few of my own, too. I’ve been revisiting the old haunts—the hedge where I picked blackberries on my daily walks, the boardwalk by the ocean, the triangular rock in the sea beneath the lookout on Doehle Street, the chimney where the flicker sat and called to me in his raucous voice and the other grassy lookout, beneath the pines, where I ran into an elderly couple, parked in a couple of lawn chairs with beers in their hands.
“We come here on fine days to watch the sunset,” the husband said. “Yep, here we get the million-dollar view without the big house and the taxes,” rejoined the wife.
Parksville has changed a lot over the past 11 years. There are million-dollar houses at the end of my sister’s street where there used to be dense stands of giant cedars and pines. It’s rare to see a deer anymore. But corners of the old neighbourhood remain. A few streets over, the bungalow on the cliff (where they raise ducks in the backyard) is still there. And the other night, a young buck walked beside my husband and I from the sea lookout, almost to home, disappearing into a bushy grove on the corner.
My sister and brother-in-law always sourced excellent local food. The French Creek Fresh Seafood retail outlet, a 10-minute drive away, was a favourite spot for fresh and frozen halibut, smoked wild salmon, ling cod, scallops, spot prawns—the list goes on. In these final days in the house, we eat well every night, emptying the freezer of stored goodies. One evening the reward at the end of the day was French Creek Fresh Seafood spot prawns and pasta, with basil pesto that my sister and brother-in-law put up in the summer of 2021.
Last night, two of my sister’s dearest friends invited us out to their house in Nanaimo. The husband of the duo is a musician who helped my sister get back into playing again after her husband died. After a fine meal of homemade meatballs and tomato sauce, my sister and her pal picked a few tunes. The last song of the evening was “I Wish We Had Our Time Again” by John Hartford, and the chorus says it all. “I wish we had our time again/I wish we had our time again/I wish we had our time again/I wish we had our time.”
