Basil Pesto: One success-One failure

I love the herby frangrance of my basil pesto. The leftover portion from my successful use catches my eye whenever I open the refrigerator door.

Must use it. Must use it pretty soon. But for what? I'm low carbing except on Wednesdays. Pasta sauce is the logical choice, but I also have a batch of fresh tomato sauce with lots of garlic and lots of fresh basil. 

Then I remembered a couple of years ago I'd slathered chicken breasts in pesto and cooked them. So I google it and get a couple of recipes with instructions. Unfortuantely the cooking time on the one I followed was way too long and they were dry. I'm pondering trying to remedy this by making a basil chicken salad with them.

The first use of my first batch of the season pesto, I used in a Rachael Ray recipe....good grief that girl can cook. Haven't tired one of her recipies yet that wasn't great.

The day I saw her do this on her TV show, I went to the food network site to get the full insturctions. Turns out it is a shortened (faster) version of a recipie she'd made before.

Here is the basic idea. You get pesto (commercial). But I made mine this time. You get Italian sausage (ground or links that you open up and take out the meat). I got mild. You get tiny mozzarella balls (they have an Italian name). I couldn't find them at the store I was in so I got a good quality mozzarella and than cut off small chuncks. Now the idea is, you encase a piece of the cheese in a portion of the meat (I think she made twelve for four servings) and form a meatball. These bake in the oven. In the meantime, you mix basil pesto into a can of tomatoes for the sauce and heat it up. She made some cheesey mashed potatoes and roasted garlicky broccoli to go with it. Me, who is low carbing and it wasn't Wed. didn't make the potatoes.

These meatballs with the sauce were delish. And one of the fastest things I every cooked. If you want the real recipe, you can find it on FN site.

And pesto slathered chicken breasts can be delish too, but not if they are overcooked.

From my stove to yours.

Susan