Creamy Sun Dried Tomato Pesto Rotini

In a food processor, combine sun-dried tomatoes, basil, olives, olive oil, vinegar, garlic and Parmesan cheese. This will make more “pesto” than you need. You can alter ingredient levels to your own taste, or leave stuff out if you like. If you don’t like the flavor of olive oil, you could replace it with canola.

Once you’ve got a loose paste, boil pasta. (I get the water boiling while I’m doing the above step).

While the pasta is cooking, put your butter in a large sauce pan or skillet. Once it’s melted, add five or six heaping tablespoons of your pesto mixture.

Add whipping cream and milk. Keep your burner on medium or low and stir pretty constantly. You don’t want the cheese to melt and burn on the bottom.

You can play with levels of pesto and milk as you stir and taste. You can also replace the cream with all milk if you prefer, but I like the sauce to be nice and thick.

By the time the pasta is done, the sauce should have cooked down pretty nicely. It will thicken once it cools.

Once your pasta is cooked (7 or 8 minutes), drain, return to pan, and poor the bubbling creamy goodness on top. If you don’t scrape all the cheesy goodness from the skillet, I will hunt you down and like your pan for you.

Mix until the rotini is covered. I like rotini for this because it holds a lot of sauce in it’s little ridges. Salt and pepper to taste. Be aware that the cheese gives it some salt already.

Serve it up! You could add a little Italian sausage or some grilled chicken, but I like it just as it is. And it stands on it’s on as an entree. Just serve with a nice spinach salad or some other greens. Om nom nom.