Pesto, Salmon, Beekmans and Cucumber Salad

We are having a stretch of nice weather so I've been harvesting the herbs in my garden. Over the years, I have collected a few Moosewood Restaurant cookbooks and their recipes are simple and tasty. I've been to the restaurant several times when I travelled to Ithaca, NY for my job. This pesto can be frozen in ice cube trays, and you can pop out a cube and add it to any pasta dish. I serve the pasta with fried chicken cutlets. It's also low-fat with no oil.

1 cup well-packed fresh basil leaves

1 cup chopped tomatoes

1 garlic clove, pressed or minced

1 tablespoon toasted pine nuts *

1/2 teaspoon salt

*To toast pine nuts, spread them in a single layer on an unoiled baking sheet and bake in a conventional or toaster oven at 350° for about 3 to 5 minutes, until just slightly deepened in color.

Rinse and drain the basil leaves. In a blender or food processor, combine the basil, tomatoes, garlic, pine nuts, and salt and puree until smooth. You may need to stop several times to scrape the sides of the blender or processor bowl with a rubber spatula.

I've been cooking my way through the "Summer" chapter of my new Beekman cookbook, and if you enjoy salmon as much as we do (once a week here), this recipe is a winner. 

I made the sauce without the green peppercorns since I didn't have them on hand. Instead of baking the salmon as the recipe suggested, we grilled it. It was restaurant quality and we loved it. 

I made the Cucumber-Dill salad as the side dish and it was also wonderful. Their recipes are so easy too.