Arugula pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, and pasta

I just discovered arugula. Dreamy!

In homage to arugula, I designed a dish around it: Rice pasta spirals with sun-dried tomatoes and arugula pesto.

To make the dish:


- Fill a large bowl with ice water. Then, bring a stockpot of water to boil and insert a bag of arugula (like you're cooking pasta). My bag was 7 oz.

- When water starts to boil again, use a strainer to pull out the cooked greens. Insert them into the ice water to stop the cooking. Then squeeze out all the water (I used clean dishtowels).

- The boiling water from the arugula can now be used for the rice pasta, since it's at the right temperature already. Snazzy, eh? Conserves water AND time.

- While pasta is cooking, food process the cooked greens with a tsp salt, garlic to taste, and 1/3 cup olive oil. I also added about 1/4 cup of pine nuts.

- When the pasta is done, toss the noodles with the pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, and salt to taste. We like our salt and garlic, so I use more of both. :)

I thought it was delicious, and it was even better as leftovers, after the ingredients married.