Pesto Penne Primavera

Food Prep and Cooking

Nick:

Little more hectic than usual, but not too bad; cook the penne, reduce the vinegar (which apparently just means simmer for 4-5 minutes?), combine it all in a big sauté pan with the tomato, squash, and pesto dressing. This is the first time I think we've ever actually used the back burner (to create the reduction), but nothing super exciting. 

Katie:

I thought a reduction would be more complicated. Maybe we had the most basic form or something. The steps fell inline nicely, a big improvement over the last time. The whole prep was fairly easy and straightforward. Not much to comment on here other than it all went smoothly.

Post-meal Thoughts

Nick:

OHHHHHHH NOOOOOOO. This had two problems, one big and one small. The small one is texture; I apparently like little baby cherry tomatoes, but just hacking an adult one into hunks and tossing it into a reduction... very bad. And the butternut squash... very bad. Just gross, squishy, yucky vegetables. Whenever you see an ad on TV and it shows a kid eating vegetables and they're upset and the narrator is like "TIRED OF THE SAME OLD VEGETABLES?", that's what these are. Blech.

As for the big problem... that pesto. This tasted like going outside and eating the lawn. Why does it taste like grass??? Apparently I have the doesn't like pesto gene, and it's very powerful in my family. Just like the Force, except instead of giving me awesome super powers I can't eat this penne dish. I took one bite of tomato and went "oh no", one bite of squash and went "oh NO" and then one bite of penne and yelled "OH NO!" and ran into the kitchen to microwave some Spaghettios. Just awful. Truly terrible. I hated everything about this. No sir, I did not like this. Mm-mm, nope. No.

Katie:

I have the complete opposite reaction as Nick. I really enjoyed this. I thought the balsamic reduction added a great element to the dish. Any time I found a tomato piece, I was quite pleased. I wasn't too keen on how big the squash pieces were (at the best of times, I think squash is fine enough but these pieces were way too big) and found myself digging them out to devour first so I could enjoy the penne, tomato, and little bits of roasted red pepper in peace. 

We actually got a decent amount of penne too. Usually, you get maybe a mouthful or two of pasta in frozen meals and any pre-prepped stuff. I was delighted to see how filling the meal would be. I did eat Nick's half so I'm extra full but I think even with just my original, I would have been satisfied.

As a small bit of housekeeping, we are switching meal box subs. We have this week and one more with Green Chef then we're trying Blue Apron. Looking forward to seeing how we fare!