What a wet day. I had to spend the entire day stuck indoors, fussing about food and planning my soon-to-arrive July vacation. Such a terribly stressful Friday. I’m 20,000 leagues under the sea because Bombay has officially drowned. Which makes me furious.  Of course, the maid took the day off (too), and I was forced to finish all the leftovers in the refrigerator (chorizo rice from Imbiss, two fish fingers, a slab of dark chocolate and some Smarties). So, for dinner, I wanted to rustle up a fresh meal. A meal, that would help me crawl (back) into my comfort zone and forget the world (again).

So I decided to cook some spaghetti tossed in butter, lemon zest and chives, coated with a fresh pesto, crispy slivers of bacon and some charred baby tomatoes and mushrooms. Sounds like a mouthful, but actually took me less than 30 minutes to put together.

For the pesto I used:

A handful of walnuts and pine nuts

A few cloves of garlic

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

A bunch of basil

A few stems of baby spinach

I wash my greens thoroughly since it’s so gross outdoors and creatures might have made their homes in them! I drip dried them, tore them up coarsely and shoved it into a blender with the other ingredients. I made a merry little ruckus as I blended it all together. At the end what I had was a beautiful, shiny, verdant, smooth-ish, pasty, pesto!

Now all I did after this is very very very very very easy. In a pot of boiling waster, I added a crushed clove of garlic, some olive oil and salt and dropped my spaghetti into it. As soon as it was cooked, I drained the water (keeping one cup of the starchy, flavoured water to use later).

Tossed it all up with some lime zest and chives.

Since this was absolutely unacceptably meatless for my consumption, I fried some lovely juicy, fatty bacon. In the aforementioned bacon fat, I proceeded to throw in the spaghetti, added a bit of the reserved water, poured in the pesto and after a spot of bish, bash, bosh dinner was ready to be served.

To serve, I added the charred tomatoes and mushrooms which I had already coated with some olive oil, lime and a drizzle of honey.

I ate this in bed while watching MasterChef Australia and cried as Jacqui got eliminated.

While a little more salt would have brought the meal alive, I did enjoy the mountains of flavours that danced in your mouth. The freshness of the pesto, the lovely zest of the lemon, the bacon fat coated spaghetti and the perfectly charred ‘shrooms!

Eh! Pesto Pesto Pesto, thanks for saving the day!

Now, of I go to find me a drink this fine Friday night. Do let me know if you cook this, don’t forget to add a fistful of cheese before you let a fork full of this hover anywhere close to your mouth.

© [Abhik Bhattacherji] and [Seventh Breakfast], [2015]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Abhik Bhattacherji] and [Seventh Breakfast] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.