Pasta or Pizza - Roasted Red Pepper Pesto Works

Wow! Who stole my week?!!! I can't believe it's Thursday. Tomorrow is Presto Pasta Night and I haven't even posted a recipe yet.

But let's back up a bit before I share. One of my very favorite Toronto people, is my cousin, who my daughter calls "Toronto Mummy" now that I've moved to Halifax. She knows how much I love the LCBO magazine Food & Drink and naturally you can only get it at an Ontario LCBO outlet, so she sent me the latest issue and I had to try the pizzas...mostly because I now can make my own delicious whole wheat pizza crust that actually tastes lovely.

The photo in the magazine stopped me in my tracks...they call this Big Red Pizza and the shrimps are what really caught my attention. The Roasted Red Pepper Pesto, when I made it, took my breath away. There are no words to describe how fantastic...I went to the Thesaurus and couldn't find anything good enough.

The pizza, on the other hand, didn't look anything like the photo. It had way too much cheese for me. Normally I use shredded cheese to top my pizzas but the article said professional pizza makers cut their cheese into small cubes. Naturally I had to try it out. And I do believe it's a great idea, but I also think 3 cups is over the top. I could barely taste the pesto or the shrimps. To say nothing about how silly it looked with lumps of melted cheese. I refused to take a picture.

I will be trying the pizza again, but the pesto really called to me as a sauce for pasta. I had the cutest strozzapreti pasta in the pantry and, of course I had more shrimp on hand.

Shrimp & Roasted Red Pepper Pasta

The pesto will also be great as an appetizer or snack on crusty Italian or French bread, as a spread on sandwiches (tuna, turkey, roast chicken....). I think I'll be doing a frittata with it too.