Arugula Pesto Pasta and the MBTA

The other night after a particularly hellish 2-hour delay on my commute courtesy of the MBTA, I finally arrived home at almost 8pm starving, cranky, and generally full of rainbows. Thankfully I had the presence of mind (psychic powers?) before boarding the train to pick up a magazine. Since I avidly read Last Night's Dinner, (cooking her way through Melissa Clark's 'No Sweat' feature,) I decided to give Rachael Ray's August magazine a try. Sometime around when they were evacuating the train one stop before mine, I found dinner in its pages.

We had a rather large handful (handfuls?) of arugula left over from the salad the other night, and I scored some basil and a smallish tomato from the garden of a family member (cat sitting and plant watering has its perks!) In our fridge there were a few slices of capicola, which took the place of the bacon, after a slice and a turn in a hot pan.

I made a half batch of the sauce, because we were low on arugula, and subbed in some Romano cheese for the Parmesan, (it's a personal preference thing, go with your gut on it). I made mine a bit thinner with pasta water, due to the fact that I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing, but it came out tasty anyway.

The sauce went over some wheat pasta. Shells, because that was what was hanging around the pantry at eye level when the water was boiled. The capicola was sprinkled on top, after it got just a bit crispy around the edges. I ignored the asparagus, because the man hates asparagus, (don't even get him started on swiss chard, because that is not to come within 5 feet of him) and I swapped out the fresh ricotta for a quick tomato salad (chunk tomatoes, mix with torn herbs - parsley, rosemary, and basil in this case, and drizzle with oil and vinegar ) which I sat directly on top of my steamy pasta. This particular version of pesto is a definite hit, around here because the arugula has a pleasant bite and freshness that knocks the basil back a bit. I was left wishing that I had made more pesto to stick in a jar and eat later (maybe with a spoon).

Yesterday, sick of shooting from the hip at dinner time I trudged to the grocery store. Check in later this week for something (hopefully) really delicious.