Pasta With a Pulse.

A couple of weeks ago, I made myself dinner.

Nothing new, nothing out of the ordinary, just following a simple recipe for one: walnut pesto gnocchi.

Easy, right?

I’ve made gnocchi plenty of times before and I’ve made pesto just as much.

So I’m following along, ingredients displayed before me, wine glass filled on the generous side and I begin to cook.

Step 1: toast the walnuts

Ok, I can do that. Wait a second: do they mean chopped or whole? Eh, whole will do.

So I toast the walnuts and go to step 2.

Step 2: pulse the next four ingredients together with the walnuts

Pulse. Ah yes, pulse.

Pulseeeeee.

Pulse. Pulse?

Standing curiously at the stove as my walnuts turned treacherously darker, I didn’t have long to contemplate what pulsing meant before I finally just decided to put all four ingredients in the skillet with the walnuts and pulse.

Pulse pulse pulse pulse pulse.

What followed next was my interpretation of what pulsing meant. I ended up kind of shimmying the ingredients around on the stove mumbling to myself repeatedly pulse pulse pulse pulse pulse as my spatula took on a kind of dance.

As I finished up the recipe and prepared to sit and enjoy this hearty feast for one, I looked down in disappointment, as my dish looked nothing like the photo on the recipe. As I put a forkful in my mouth, I also came to the conclusion that my dish tasted nothing like the recipe intended to, I’m sure.

I later found out that the cause of my clumpy pasta with too many textures for one bite was my pulsing dance moves.

They meant pulse as in a food processor, not pulse as in a dance on the stove...

Relaying this humorous tale to the kitchen staff at Addie Camp, I knew that the best way to redeem myself was to make it again, properly this time.

I mean, this isn’t the first time I’ve miraculously made my way through a kitchen despite disaster and ignorance of the rules.

I mean, for the longest time, up until a few months ago, I didn’t know you had to peel skin off both an onion and garlic before cooking.

There was also the evening in which I attempted to make homemade gnocchi only to watch in horror as my balls of pasta literally disintegrated once I put them in hot water to cook (so much for being my meals for the week).

Or the one time I trusted my dad and ate raw salmon sashimi.

Like I said, I’ve made plenty of mistakes before, particularly in the kitchen.

But, like with most things, you make mistakes, you learn from them, and then you don’t do them again (hopefully).

So the other night, after purchasing fresh Genovese basil from fresh365, I took all my ingredients home, immediately pulled out my blender (still don’t have a food processor but I figured a blender would do just fine), and went about proving myself right about not making the same mistake twice, at least as far as pesto goes.

Well, it was a success.

Pesto came out creamy and green, and all in one smooth texture, no clumps or chunks!

Sitting down with my fine cuisine, I marveled at how much I learned from just one mistaken misread of a recipe.

Pulse pulse pulse pulse pulse.