November 5, 2012 Pasta in Pesto and sautéed beets, red onions, zucchini and pork

November 5, 2012 Pasta in Pesto and sautéed beets, red onions, zucchini and pork

Suzette had a dinner meeting this evening and I road at 4:30 p.m.  When I went to the kitchen at 6:00 p.m. after showering, Luke had begun to cook dinner.  He was boiling a pot of Italian organic Gemilli pasta (Costco) and slicing fresh beets he had bought at the Farmers’ Market last Saturday and had begun to sauté them in a skillet with a diced clove of fresh garlic from o garden and some olive oil.  I asked if I could add some shallot to his beet sauté and he said, “Yes.”, so I took one of the shallots I had bought at the Farmers’ Market on Saturday ($6.00 per lb.) and minced 1/2 of the shallot and put it in Luke’s beet sauté. 
I saw that Luke had laid the three Mexican squashes on the kitchen table and so, like coming in with a jazz solo in the middle of a song, I fetched the PPI Pork steak from last Monday’s meal and a half of a red onion (Pro’s Market $.79/lb.) and sliced one of the Mexican squashes (Pro’s Market $.50/lb.) lengthwise into four 3/8 inch thick slices and sliced rounds of onion about ¼ inch thick and minced the rest of the shallot.  Then I heated some grape seed oil in a large skillet on medium high heat and, when heated, laid the slices of red onion and squash and shallot in the skillet to brown.  I then sliced the pork into ½ inch thick slices.  The pork was still reddish pink in the middle, so needed a little more cooking time to dispel the redness and to warm, so I laid the pork slices on top of the red onion slices and, after I turned the sautéed squash slices, moved the pork slices to the top of the squash so they would not have contact with the hot skillet and overcook and toughen.   After about fifteen minutes and several tests of the pasta for doneness, we decided that the pasta was soft enough to eat and Luke stirred a healthy scoop of Suzette’s homemade pesto and the 1 1/2 cup of Pecorino Romano cheese I had grated into the pasta.  By this time the pork had lost it pinkness and the onions and squash had caramelized and taken on bits of brown color, so I turned off the heat.
Willy was at home so we called him to dinner and Luke put the pasta in a bowl on the table in the T.V. room and we watched “It is always Sunny in Philadelphia” and ate a lovely dinner.  I poured out the last of the Toad Hollow Rosé and enjoyed dinner immensely.   The wine had mellowed in the last three or four days of chilling in the fridge.  I liked it better a little oxidized and less bubbly and zippy, as it was when we opened it .  

I love seeing Luke put together dinner menus that make sense and his generosity of allowing me to improvise a side dish to my liking.  Luke even ate some of the caramelized squash slices and red onion, which made a lovely garnish for his pasta dish.  Could there be an “Eating with Suzette and Luke and Bob” in the future?

Bon Appètit