Simple Spicy Tomato Pesto and a Cafe Coco Announcement

I’ve been living my life outside my normal gourmet cooking routine.

In fact I’ve been keeping what I made this summer to be simple. Real Simple. I’m almost too embarrassed to say how simple. Certainly so much so, you wouldn’t think I was a person who wrote a ‘food blog’!

Remember when I told you I have reasons for not blogging, and I would tell you when the time was right? Well, Café Coco is expecting a baby Coco—well we aren’t sure boy or girl just yet but it’s a mini-me just the same. The due date: February 16th. My family is convinced it will be a Valentine’s baby.

My adoring husband has been so sweet and understanding these last few months, but even he sometimes couldn’t understand the depths of my ever changing appetite. One night he came home and literally life changed—His because he no longer had dinner on the table; mine because I was carrying a baby and no longer could put dinner on the table.

So to show his support, he helps with running to the local Coney Island to get my lemon rice soup or whatever I felt I could ‘handle’ that day. I could tell he was getting restless because one Friday he came home saying he was taking me out to a special dinner.

He was so proud to take his wife of nearly 2 years (and carrying his baby of nearly 8 weeks) out for a great meal so that I didn’t have to worry about what to do for dinner.

We ordered our food, he sipped on wine, I guzzled on water nearly capsizing because of all the lemons I put in it. When our food came, he didn’t speak, all he could do was eat. I took one look at my food, stabbed it with my fork. Suddenly, my eyes were as wide as saucers. I looked up at him, while pushing my plate as far away from me as I could get it and said, “I can’t do it. I can’t eat this.” I could tell he was a bit deflated.

He tried. I was embarrassed.

I was embarrassed because I wasn’t that girl. Not anymore at least. Suddenly I had reverted back to being 5 years old and hating everything put in front of me unless it was a peanut butter and Jelly sandwich or Macaroni and cheese.

I couldn’t just return the meal. The chef would be hurt. Instead, my husband ate both pricey meals while I went home and feasted on a bowl of cereal.

So this is how I have spent my last few months. Eating whatever sounded good at the moment. Luckily, fruits have never been on the aversion list! Despite the food aversion, I never actually had morning sickness, or vomited. Did I just say vomit on a food blog? Why yes. Yes I did. But a food aversion, to me at least, was just as bad. Food is my lively hood. It makes me who I am. Suddenly I had an alien take over my body and everything I knew had changed. How I ate, what I did, how I thought, how I felt, how much I needed to sleep. Everything. Suddenly I had lost my cooking mojo. Poof. Gone.

I felt like it was a message of putting me back in my place. Sometimes I get high and mighty about cooking from scratch. Because I think it’s so important and vital to living a healthy lifestyle. And it is. But I now empathize with those who don’t have the cooking gene; the creative gene to create something amazing in the kitchen. I get it. I literally had to re-build myself into learning to cook again. While some things remain like ‘riding a bike’. . It’s almost like I had forgotten many things. I was truly out of practice.

So this is for those who like to keep it simple. It comes together in less than 20 minutes. Sometimes 10 if you can get your ducks in a row to hustle. It’s one of my favorite go to meals, perfect for summer, and just the thing I needed to get jump started in the kitchen.

The bonus is the sauce for this is bold. Real bold. So this is your chance to use whole wheat pasta, because this sauce can totally stand up to it.

For the recipe, check it out, I actually discovered it from Women’s Health and its fabulous!


Enjoy!

Stay tuned....I'm going to share the meal I made for my husband when I told him the 'news'.

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