Italian/French style Artichoke Pesto Pasta with Garden

Yesterday I made the most scrumptious dinner. It's an Italian/French style pasta dish with possibly more vegetables than pasta, making it more balanced than just grains. I was originally just going to have the pesto sauce with the noodles, but the dish eventually grew and grew as I found more vegetables to include.

Pasta shells
Broccoli
Capers
Artichoke Hearts
Mushroom
Olives
Artichoke Pesto
Heavy whipping cream

I steamed the head of broccoli and while that was happening, put the water on the pasta, sliced the mushrooms and olives, measured out the capers, the 2 oz of dry pasta, opened the artichoke hearts and loaded the dishwasher. It took the broccoli a while to cook.

I dumped out the broccoli in the sink, kept it covered to keep it warm. I cooked the pasta with olive oil and salt, then warmed the pesto, capers and cream up in a small sauce pan. When the noodles were ready, I drained them, threw them back in the pan and tossed everything in. I poured the sauce over it, gave it a hearty stir, and it was ready.

Of course, I loaded the dishwasher and cleaned up my mess before eating it, but man. It was delicious. Next time I think I might warm up the mushrooms. The olives were just tangy enough to give it a kick, which makes me wonder about using calamato olives next time.

Tonight I am making Leek Soup from French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano. The purpose of this soup is to cleanse your taste buds so that you can experience a greater variety of flavors after a weekend of only eating the Leek Soup. You drink the juice and eat the Leeks themselves for an entire weekend. I'm actually really excited because I've never tried leeks before (to my knowledge, my mom might have hid them in some of our food, who knows). I really wish I had a food scale, though. That might make weighing portions easier. :)