Any day is a good day for pesto

My brother-in-law and his wife recently moved into a new house and decided to have a few folks over for a backyard barbeque yesterday (is there anything better in June?).  They were providing all the main food and we just had to bring a side, so I decided to try making Smitten Kitchen's pesto potato salad with green beans. I didn't have time to hit up a nice farmer's market so I had to get packaged green beans and basil (no fresh ones at the supermarket, alas).

I already toasted the pine nuts (and forgot to take a pic during the toasting):

I set our biggest pot on the stove and got the fire going:

I proceeded to chop up the green beans:

The water came to a boil pretty quickly, which was a surprise (that pot takes foreeeever to come to a rolling boil) so I dumped the quartered potatoes in.  Of course, this caused the boiling water to splash out and splash me.  Thankfully I didn't get hurt.  I set the time for 10 minutes and went to go do something else.  At the five minute mark, I went back to check and realized the water wasn't boiling. Yeah, that big water splash before?  It put out the fire so just the gas was running.  Ooops!  When I told the hubby, he said, "Oh, so that's why you've been so whacked out tonight."  (Excuse you, I was not whacked out.  No more than normal.) 

So I turned the fire back on and reset the timer and kept an eye on the potatoes because now the cook time was going to be a real guessing game. The potatoes and green beans cooked well, though, so then I set them to cool and made the pesto (LOVE fresh made pesto - I cannot fathom buying pesto):

I was worried that it wouldn't be enough pesto - it seemed so little, but it worked out fine.  The recipe says to put the potatoes and green beans in a bowl and toss them with the pesto, vinegar, and pine nuts.  However, I prefer to toss my food separately from the bowl I'm going to serve it in, so I returned the potatoes and green beans to the cooking pot (which was completely cooled down):

The one special ingredient that this recipe called for was a mild vinegar, like a white balsamic.  I've never worked with this before but was very excited to try it.  I bought a bottle (for $30!) at Williams-Sonoma.

It was so pretty, like a little wine bottle:

So I tossed the potatoes and green beans with the pesto, the balsamic, and the toasted pine nuts. 

Yum yum:

We came home with a lot left over, so I'm not sure how everyone felt about it.  No one said anything good or bad.  I thought it could use a bit more flavor - more basil and definitely more garlic... and something else.  I don't know what, though.  I have to figure it out.  I will enjoy taking the leftovers for lunch this week, though.

Comments

[Danielle]

I liked it! The only thing that I could do without was the pine nuts, but that is because I am not suppose to be eating them!