Pesto Pasta

Many week nights, my ten year old daughter dictates what we have for dinner.  She has cravings, and will often ask me to pick something up on the way home from my office at the beginning of the River Market.  So one afternoon, she asked if we could have something with pesto.  I then considered all the reliable stores along the way from my office to home.  Believe me, there are many.  The trek to way out West Little Rock not only seems like a long one, it just is.  Somehow, stopping by Terry's Finer Foods in the Heights makes that trip seem a little shorter.

Since it's a week night, it's nice to have a grocer that I know I can trust to make a quality pesto that tastes like it's homemade.  It didn't taste like those other prepackaged on the shelf brand name pestos.  It always helps to look in the refrigerated section for the fresh tasting stuff, too.  Especially when you want really good pesto without the time that it takes to make really good pesto.  Having tasted a few other store - made pestos from other refrigerated sections, I'm going to say this is the best I've had.

We love eating a different variety of pastas.  On this night, I chose some buccatini, similar to spaghetti, but thicker, chewier, and a hole runs through the center.  I thought it held the garlicky basil sauce well.  We served our pasta with some smoked sausage and oven - roasted corn that I cut off the cob and seasoned with some Ferneau seasoning.  You can find Ferneau seasoning at Terry's Finer Foods.  You can also find it at the Little Rock Farmers Market on Saturdays and Tuesdays.  It's more fun than salt, and it makes everything taste better!

Ingredients:

• Buccatini Pasta
• Pesto Sauce

Directions:

1. Cook the pasta per package directions.
2. Drain, then return pasta to stock pot.
3. Add pesto and mix.