5.11.2008

Shortbread and sun-dried tomato pesto

I chair a children’s book selection committee – I won’t go into too much depth about what we do (because this is a food-related post) but, ultimately, the committee helps me review un-reviewed books so that we can decide if we want them to be part of Queens Library’s collections. When I started my job 18 months ago, I decided to bring breakfast to the meetings, mostly as a bribe so that they’d be nice to the new gal. As you know, I don’t like to bake. So I’ve always bought bagels at my local kosher place, or croissants and muffins from the local bakery. Not this past week, though. I wanted to actually make something for the committee, but I didn’t want to do a cloying sweet treat. Nope, like any dictatorial leader, I decided I’d make something savory and make them eat it out of fear of insulting me or hurting my feelings.

I needed something easy to transport and something that could be served at room temperature. And I also thought that, given the few Jewish and vegetarian members of our committee, it was best to avoid any meat products (I found some deelish-sounding proscuitto recipes). Epicurious came through for me again and I discovered Parmesan, Rosemary, and Walnut Shortbread. Per the recipe, it was recommended to top it with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto, which I also found a recipe for. I won’t put the whole recipes here because I don’t want this to the The Longest Post Ever – follow the links. Here’s how it all turned out:

The shortbread dough

Rolled in "logs"

In the oven (because I forgot to take one before I put them in there!)

The pesto

The finished product


It turned out delectable. The shortbread was buttery with a melt-in-your-mouth quality, and the pesto was the perfect foil, giving the shortbread zing and pizzazz. Not as many people ate them as normally wolf down the breakfast bakery goods I usually bring in, but I was very pleased with the praise from those who did give it a try. The pesto is super versatile: the recipe actually includes mixing it with linguine. It worked on the shortbread well, and it would also make a fab sandwich spread. The salty shortbread would be great with tomato soup (or any soup, I suppose).

I won’t do this every month when the committee meets, but I still had fun shaking it up a bit by combining my two favorite things: children’s books and food.

Eat, drink, and do something unexpected.

2 comments:

Ellen said...

The shortbread and pesto sounds delicous, Laura! Here's another idea for the next time you want to bake up something for your committee, Irish soda bread with raisins and caraway. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/107136
Sorry, I'm not tech savvy enough to know how to make that a hyperlink. This bread is easy, delish and was a crowd pleaser when we had our St. Patrick's day party here at the office. I did cut back on the aumount of raisins and it still had plenty.

Anonymous said...

For more great pesto recipes, see http://iheartpesto.blogspot.com