Dinner Inspiration: My neighbor's arugula pesto

We have the best neighbors in the entire world.  Seriously.  This is for a variety of reasons but one that I hold especially dear:  They share things from their garden.

The other day we were in the backyard trading gardening stories with our neighbor (we have both just moved into new houses and this was both of first years for these gardens).  He then asked if we would like to try his arugula pesto.  Absolutely!  In two minutes I was holding a mason jar full of love from his garden.  He said it was a mix of home grown arugula, lemon juice, parmesan, olive oil, and pine nuts.  I don't know the recipe so that's why I'm not sharing it here.

With that in hand, I was inspired to make a pasta dish with some love from my garden too.

I marinated chicken thighs in basil, olive oil and pepper then grilled them.  Roasted sliced zucchini (from my garden) and asparagus (cut into one inch pieces) mixed with olive oil, pepper, and salt at 350 for 15 minutes and then high broil for 2 minutes.  Boiled up some shell pasta and mixed it all together with the pesto.  Plated it up and topped it with some shredded parmesan.

I can always tell how well Beast likes something by if he runs to claim the leftovers for lunch the next day.  As we were clearing the table, he was already scraping the bowl into a "to go" container.

This is easily re-creatable even if you don't have lovely neighbors giving you jars of heavenly made pesto.  Grab a jar of pesto at the grocery store or make your own.  Serve with roasted veggies, pasta, and grilled chicken and you've got it.

Happy cooking!