recipe: roasted vegetable pasta with pesto

the wonderful grandma who manages produce at the lao market heard me asking the other day for basil (i was making pizza) - i didn't see any on display. so she made up a giant bag of basil and put a $1.50 price tag on it. while i appreciate such a bargain - this would've been $15 of basil at whofo - it's sometimes hard to use up such a quantity of fresh leaves. so, pesto. the roasted vegetables were mostly an effort to use up slightly punky things sitting in the fridge. but they roasted perfectly.

assembly:
vegetables (tonight it was brussels sprouts, pepper, onion, and eggplant)
olive oil
salt
pepper

preheat the oven to 450*. chop up the vegetables into similar bite-sized pieces. place on a roasting pan, cover enthusiastically with olive oil, season, and roast. make sure to roast them nice and dark - there are few things more pathetic than underroasted vegetables.

pesto:
2C very tightly packed basil leaves
3T pine nuts (or walnuts, which are a lot cheaper and work just as well)
a few cloves of garlic
1/2C olive oil
1/2C grated parmigiano-reggiano (okay, fine, i used piave - but you're supposed to use D.O.P. parm - as a former cheesemonger, i have to tell you that the parm they ship to the US sucks - unless you're willing to pay $40/lb+ for the good stuff - end of tangent)
a nice pinch of salt
3T butter

grind the basil, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil, and salt to a paste in the food processor. add the butter and cheese and pulse until amalgamated.

finish:
1/2lb pasta

heat a pot of salted water, and cook your pasta. toss with the roasted vegetables, and top with pesto.

serves three-ish. the pesto keeps, but it'll oxidize into a depressing olive-drab color almost immediately. doesn't affect the flavor, though. and i think most americans are used to it looking that way these days.