Gourmet Garden Blog Off/ Cook Off Day One

I love growing my own herbs and veggies, there is something very therapeutic about tending to your garden, admittedly I’m not the best gardener but so far the biggest challenge of keeping my herbs alive are the pesky neighbourhood possums.  They just love a healthy diet of soft leaves such as basil and parsley!  

Thanks to Gourmet Garden’s blog off/ cook off competition I’ve had the opportunity to try their fantastic range of herbs which come in convenient squeeze tubes.  I was very excited to find a selection of Gourmet Garden goodies at my door step when arriving home from work last Friday afternoon.  This week I'll be sharing my cooking adventures with these handy herbs and hopefully inspiring you to add some herby deliciousness to your everyday meals.

First recipe for the week is super simple, quick to make and most importantly tastes amazing.  I love making my own pesto and it's such a versatile flavour you can add it to many recipes or even just spread on a toasted sandwich.  My basil plant doesn't produce nearly enough crop to satisfy my pesto addiction and that's where the Gourmet Garden products come in handy.  One tube of basil paste contains the equivalent of 3 bunches of fresh chopped basil, I've also noted they don't contain artificial colours or flavours and are Australian grown.  So here goes, I used about half a tube of Gourmet Garden Basil, some Chunky Garlic and Hot Chilli to spice things up. 

Pesto Seafood Pasta

250g spiral pasta

200g peeled prawns

200g scallops

2 red capsicums, thinly sliced

1 brown onion, thinly sliced

2 tbsp Gourmet Garden Chunky Garlic

1 tbsp Gourmet Garden Hot Chilli

1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved

basil pesto

1/4 cup pine nuts

3 tbsp Gourmet Garden basil

1 tsp Gourmet Garden Chunky Garlic

3/4 cup grated parmesan

1 tbsp oil

1. Combine prawns and scallops with garlic, chilli and a little salt and pepper in a container; refrigerate.

2. Boil water in medium saucepan, add pasta and cook until al dente. Drain and set aside

3. Make pesto: combine pine nuts and parmesan in food processor until coarse crumbs are formed.  Add basil and garlic then gradually add oil.

4. Fry onion and capsicum in large fry pan or wok until aromatic and slightly browned

5. Add seafood mix and fry until seafood is cooked, this won’t take long so be careful not to overcook

6. Reduce heat to low and stir in pasta, pesto and cherry tomatoes

7. Serve with some freshly sliced shallots.

This recipe serves 4.  There is plenty of room to be flexible with quantities and I tend to find cooking a lot more fun when you can guesstimate.  I would also recommend adding a splash of white wine to this dish to enhance the flavours.  A zesty, aromatic Riesling would compliment this dish perfectly.