Our favorite summer meal

Sorry to make a debut entrance with such a simple recipe, particularly with one that features a trick stolen directly from my father, but this is a warm up people! And it's Heath's favorite. I have a feeling that my contribution to this blog will often focus on the cheapest and simplest way to eat well, but I hope you will find me no less inspired.

So we eat pesto about once a week in the summer, and always with fresh pasta which I buy at our local fish store for $4.50 a hit and will serve 4. Best option is to follow instructions in pasta making post, but in a pinch, I still say fresh is the only way. For the pesto I never use a recipe, just combine traditional ingredients in food processor and go heavy on the garlic, adding more of whatever's needed. I also like varied texture in pesto so I always experiment with adding whole toasted pine nuts, toasted garlic chips. My favorite is to add fresh tomatoes, but Dad recently showed me this trick of roasting them beforehand to draw out the strongest possible flavor. These could have even stayed in longer but the house started to fill with smoke. Fortunately I long ago removed the fire alarm during the Pineapple Upside Down Cake Pyrotechnic Event of 2008.

I like to serve this all tossed together in a big bowl with crusty French bread and a crisp white wine. Bowl scraping de rigueur.