I Choose to Chew my Green Goddess Smoothies

There are lots of things that make me curiously happy, like a pair of jeans that fit perfectly, a surprisingly warm day in the middle of January, the fact that my birthday is only four days away, and Greek yogurt drizzled with honey and toasted almonds for breakfast. What made me exceptionally happy today, however, was when my dinner plans turned out even better than I could have hoped. You know the old saying that starts out "best laid plans of mice and men..." and sometimes you feel like the man and sometimes you feel the mouse, but regardless your plans "gang aft agley."

I had made kale pesto while still on break and threw it in the freezer for a day such as today where I ran wide open since 9am and returned home famished. I tossed this pesto with sauteed broccoli, whole wheat rigatoni pasta, and topped with diced tomatoes and shredded Romano cheese. It was a beautiful concept as I was brainstorming my dinner walking home from classes, much like a kindergartner meticulously plans his after school snack down to every last detail, but as I was mixing it all up my excitement waned a bit when the proper creamy consistency of traditional pesto was lacking from my pasta (due to the fact that I omitted the customary Parmesean cheese in the pesto in order to cut calories and fat.) I added a little of the pasta's cooking water, with all that gummy starch, and again I was curiously happy as I plated my pasta dinner... which just occurred to me contained many of the elements of a Green Goddess smoothie. I always preferred chewing my vegetables anyway.

For those of you who may be curious, my pesto was comprised of blanched kale leaves, toasted walnuts, fresh basil, olive oil and a little water to bind, seasoned with salt and red pepper flakes. This is of course just a jumping off point as you can base your pesto off of anything you would like, including spinach which I have done in the past with great success.