Pondering with my Pesto & Spinach Sauce

So I wanted to get a little deep and talk about some stuff  that goes on with me, Tiny Taster, Annia, and what has helped me oh so much! My mind is like a web browser with 500 open tabs. I over think everything... and maybe thats why I love cooking, when I make one thing, I like to think of the millions of different ways I want to add or modify the recipe to be better or simply different. Well thats how I think about life on a daily basis. I think about the past and how I could've done things differently, the million different ways... I think about the future and I worry that one choice can take me on the completely wrong path. And on a daily basis I wonder if I'll get things done in time, I worry about money, and that the dog needs to go to the vet, and when I need to get the oil changed and that I forgot eggs at the grocery store, trivial things, things we all worry about, but its just constant in my head, its very loud at times. It has been a long & exhausting journey with this mind of mine. But just being able to tell you these things, to tell myself these things, is the biggest step forward I have ever taken....

I've definitely had times of clarity. I have had months and even whole years of joy and feelings of freedom with very minimal worries. I have learned some tools I need and the ways I need to live life so that I can remain free. As much as that sounds like a happy ending and you're probably thinking "OK so whats the problem, you know what to do!"  it doesn't simply end happily there. I get stuck again. Its like I am just a spectator. A spectator who knows what to do, what I need for myself, how I need to live and love... and I am watching Annia just continue to overthink, stress, worry, frown. I just want to scream at myself and tell myself what to do but I can't hear me or maybe I don't want to hear me because I think "well the things that helped before, aren't gonna help now, things have changed!". Don't get me wrong, I am by no means this overly sad negative soul. and by no means am I an ungrateful person for all that I have been blessed with, I just have this underlying overthinking anxiety thing that pokes at me sometimes and sometimes it feels like it wants to squash my positive flow on any given day. 

I have recently bought this book that is dissecting me in a whole new way. It is taking the joyous ways I helped myself years ago and it is boosting it up from a 7 to a 10. It feels like this author is speaking directly and solely to me! The book is called The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. I am halfway done with it and it is truly opening my eyes and my heart. It is teaching me how to silence my mind, how to relax, how to let go. That feelings are just feelings, they're things we experience.  Even the trivial daily annoyances. When we experience difficult feelings we need to just feel their pain and then let it go. Letting the feeling pass through us. If we keep these feelings inside, yes even the tiny ones, (getting annoyed at another driver on the road for example) we close off our hearts and these feelings become clogged and stored in our hearts and they will forever, until the end of time, control our lives. 

Life is so short and we are like a grain of sand on a beach, on a tiny rock that floats in space, along with billions of other tiny rocks. Why do we worry so much? Why are we so afraid? Why do we hold grudges and pain inside? We should be throwing our hands up in the air and smiling to the sky. Rejoicing because we are here now... when so many left too soon. 

I know its easier said than done, I should know! I think these are lessons I will have to replay in my mind constantly. Every interaction I have, or every event that takes place, I will have to remind myself to not take it so seriously. Worrying is such a waste of time! Let it go! 

Anyways! Now to a little recipe that always brings me home. 

Since I was little, my mom would make this spinach puree and mix it in with pasta or mashed potatoes and I would just die over it! I hated spinach in its leaf form or steamed... it was my my mom's tricky tricky nature to get me to eat my veggies and this was one of my favorites. I decided to add basil to it and make it into a pesto when I was in college. Pesto is my all time favorite sauce for pastas and pizza and bread and anything ever. YUM. By adding the spinach puree I made it sooo much healthier and that makes me a happy camper. 

I have a boyfriend who LOVES his sweets and his meat and taters! So its difficult to get him to eat his nutritious stuff on a daily basis. This was my way of channeling my mother... oh boy... I really am becoming my mother, something I dreaded as a teen! She really is the best though, so I guess its ok :) Here is my super simple and amazeballs pesto sauce with spinach! 

Thanks for reading along by the way, it means a lot to me to have you guys to talk to :) 


***Shown in the top picture is my beautiful pesto spinach sauce tossed into spaghetti with some seared scallops, asparagus, mushrooms and shaved parmesan cheese***

Servings: 4
Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 cups fresh basil, stems removed
• 3 cups baby spinach leaves
• 3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tbsp garlic powder (or you can go fresh garlic too, use 3 large cloves, peeled)
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese 
• 4 tbsp pine nuts
• 1 tsp olive oil for pine nuts
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions:

• In a small frying pan drizzle 1 tsp olive oil and set to medium high heat, add pine nuts. 
• Toss pine nuts several times until you smell that toasty smell and see them get a nice tan. 
• In food processor or blender (I used magic bullet with the blender attachment) add spinach, basil, garlic, Parmesan, salt and pepper and pine nuts. Close lid but leave the small opening open. 
• Turn on the food processor/blender and drizzle olive oil in slowly until you have poured it all in. 
• Blend until you no longer see any whole green leaves! 
• Toss in pasta, use as a dip for bread, drizzle it on veggies or steak.... so many possibilities :)

So much love. 
Tiny Taster