chocolate and zucchini

In a stress-induced foodblog browsing attack last weekend, I visited Chocolate and Zucchini. I'm not sure why, but I've never made any recipes from this site, even though they always look delicious. Two recipes in particular stood out, Pesto Fraise Basilic (Stawberry and Basil Pesto) and Cacao & Zucchini Absorption Pasta
maybe for their simplicity, and I've made them in the last week. I didn't take pictures because my camera is MIA under the heaps of books and papers that exploded all over my room.

My pesto turned out a sort of puke-like pink color, but is a really interesting combination of tastes and textures. The ground almonds almost end up feeling like strawberry seeds. There's only a hint of strawberry taste at the beginning of each bite, then the parmesan and then the basil taste, but maybe I'm overanalyzing.

The absorption pasta was pretty tasty as well. The garlic and broth infused into the pasta and I finally got around to eating some zucchinis from my garden. I doubled the recipe, which says it makes "one copious serving," but then proceeded to eat 75% of the dish for lunch. Oh well. Oink oink... which reminds me (I'm not making this up), I added bacon because I didn't have any cacao nibs. I know, bacon substituted for cacao nibs makes no sense, but it was tasty!