Penne Pasta with Pesto, Potatoes & Green Beans

This was penne pasta with pesto, potatoes and green beans.

Since I saw the recipe of this classic pasta from Liguria, a coastal region of north-western Italy, in Cook's Illustrated, I had been waiting for a chance to try. Yes, we love pasta with pesto. Usually simple Pesto Genovese, originally from Genoa, the regional capital of Liguria. It was still too early to harvest fresh basil from our garden. Even we have't planted any yet. Instead I used frozen pre-made pesto that we bought at an Italian deli in Baltimore a few months ago. So I adapted only a part of the recipe. Basically I just tossed cooked penne with potatoes, beans, toasted pine nuts and pesto all together. The recipe called for Gemelli pasta, a short twisted pasta, that I didn't have. Penne was the recipe's second choice. In Liguria, fresh pasta called Trofie seems to be traditionally used here.

Green, green, green! It was a lovely spring dish. I liked the combination of potatoes and green beans in pasta, which was new for us. Potato and pasta. Starchy and starchy. That was apparently strange for J, even the Cook's Illustrated said "The idea of serving two starches together might seem unusual". The idea didn't surprise me at all. I have grown up in a country where you can find potato salad, fried potato ball (korroke), and stir-fried noodles between sandwich breads. Japanese love starch, I guess. Funny.