Medallion Ligurian Croxetti Pasta with Pesto, served with Baby Bok Choy-Tempeh-Red Pepper Tapenade

I've been having long but very interesting days at the photo convention, ducking out today to teach a new photography workshop. We had dinner with my parents , who live around the corner, this weekend; my Mom kindly offered to prepare dinner both days. On Saturday, she had an Indian meal with rice, dhal, and okra. Yesterday, she made the best pizza that she has made in a long time - it was excellent! (When I was a young child in Ohio, we used to live in a home where a wonderful Italian woman "became" my loving grandma, and she taught my Mom to make great pizza!)

Today I got home by 6:30p; my wife had to leave by 8p for a Sanskrit class, so I got busy making dinner. I found that she had bought some baby bok choy yesterday, so made a simple saute with three baby bok choys, cut lengthwise into thirds; about 1/5 of a yellow and 1/4 of a red onion, chopped; and about half of a package of tempeh, sliced into thin rectangles. The tempeh went in for about 4-5 minutes till it was lightly brown, then I added the onion and, a few minutes later, the baby bok choy. As the baby bok choy cooked a bit, I added a little Meditalia brand red pepper tapenade and a few pinches of salt, then served.

As I did last September, I prepared some Costa dei Rosmarini brand croxetti pasta. As I described in the September blog posting, this is a disc-shaped pasta that originated "in the Middle Ages in Liguria (northwestern Italy near France) when high-class families would show off their coats of arms, even imprinting them on their pasta. The dimensionality of the imprinting helps the pasta hold light sauces reasonably well." Since my homemade pesto seems to be a recent trend, I topped the pasta with some.

Tomorrow, we have a banquet (I'll dress up in a tuxedo!) at the conference. The conference ends on Wednesday.