AY! AY! AY! THE HERBS ARE GOING BAD!

What to do?
Well, let’s go over said herbs, I’ve got 2 weary chives (not worth saving) a crumbling handful of thyme, a damp saggy pile of basil, a giant slimy bushel of cilantro, and a perfectly healthy bushel of flat leaf parsley. Well clearly this will have to be 2 dishes, I can’t work this all together without overpowering all the other tastes with cilantro. It’s a good thing I have some healthy herbs growing outside.
So supplemented with oregano and thyme from the potted plants, I decided on herby vongole pasta, and a cilantro pesto. The clam pasta was great, but I’m not sure what to do with the pesto except grind some Parmesan cheese into it eat it like soup…
What? Don’t judge me!


Here is the pathetic little pile of herbs that I had. Ordinarily I wouldn't add the basil at the beginning but the basil I had was very strong in flavour so I added it at the beginning



Lets see what I have out back to help us out, the basil is way too juvenile to be harvested.

Oh but the oregano and thyme will do nicely : )

Chop up a yellow onion and metric ton of garlic... or less, whatever.

Into the pan, keep the garlic chopped thick and the onions chopped thin, this way the onions will brown and the garlic won't burn.

I flung a few clams on the floor to see if it would lure the natives out of hiding. Sure enough it worked, but after a few sniffs they decided they weren't interested.
This is the newly famous Olive.

And big giant Sid happened by as well.

2 cans of baby clams and the herbs in the mix.

Adding some vermouth or white wine, you could also use some sort of stock, veg or bird.

It seems an anchovy is trying to escape from the jar. I punished it by adding it to the pan.

Added half a bunch of flat leaf parsley, chopped coarsley for added fresh flavour.

Add red pepper flakes and heat on high to soften the parsley a little bit and boil off / concentrate the liquid a little bit.

Mix into the pasta (whole wheat spaghetti, drained, but I retained some of the cooking liquid) and let it mingle for a few minutes to soak up the juice.

Finish it with the juice of half a lemon (Save the other half, we'll use it in the pesto).

Herby Vongole Pasta... TADAAA!

Now to deal with this mess, look how slimy! Oh, you can also see the sad thyme sprigs before they became part of the pasta. So I cut off the parts of the cilantro that hadn't putrefied and washed them.

Added them to the mini food processor with the other half of the bushel of flat leaf parsley.

Add pine nuts

WZZZZ WZZZZZ WZZZZZ Then I added some olive oil, red wine vinegar, and the juice of the other half of that lemon. Now what?

Enjoy the pictures and if you have any suggestions for the cilantro pesto, don’t be shy.
So far the front runner is Kyle, Maybe he’ll post a comment and let the world know what it is