Rubbishy Cookery

  Disclaimer #1: this is not a Spanish tortilla, which I also adore, and is also a type of potato omelette. This potato omelette isn’t even close to the Spanish version, except for the eggs and potatoes. Disclaimer #2: I didn’t invent this dish. This particular recipe was introduced to me by my grade 8 bestie, Karen Crawford, who said that her father invented it by accident while trying to make a potato soufflé. This story doesn’t make any sense to me now, and I question my memory of these origins. Which means that I may also have altered the recipe over the past forty (40!) years. Which means I maybe can take some credit for its current incarnation.  However! This omelette made a huge impression on my little 13-year old self. It may be the first recipe I made an effort to learn to make by myself that came to me from outside of my family, and I spent a lot of time working on perfecting my techniques to make it taste as good as the Crawford family version. I remember making fai...

  Of course I did not invent pesto. I started my independent culinary life buying pre-made pesto to use as a sauce, a dip, a topping. I graduated to using official pesto recipes, buying and measuring and mixing ingredients to make pesto. And I evolved to finally making large batches of improv pesto.  Improv pesto sometimes means pesto with surprises. Some surprises are better than others, as we shall see. Ingredients: Note: the pine nuts can be replaced with walnuts, and the fresh basil with other herbs. Cilantro or arugula make surprisingly good substitutes for some or all of the basil. Note #2: improv pesto means not measuring anything but adding amounts as the spirit moves you. This almost always works out fine. Note #3: I literally, as I am typing up this blog post, just noticed I forgot garlic. Garlic is a very important ingredient in pesto. This is a big omission. Directions: Wash and spin dry the basil (or alternate) and stuff it into the food processor (hopefully you h...