A few weeks ago I was contacted by Gary of Gary’s Seasoning to inquire if I’d like to try his line of all purpose seasonings. I agreed and was sent a bottle of each of his seasoning blends: Original, Hot for Mama and Too Hot for Mama. My dad totally loves this stuff. He’s used about half of the jar of the Original blend already and uses it on a variety of things – from BBQ, to collard greens and more. It’s a blend of about 20 different spices with a unique and flavorful twist that can be added to a variety of recipes. I finally started using it as well and here’s a dish I used it in!
I also went to the Farmer’s Market on Tuesday in Mira Mesa and picked up a package of some Pesto Bitchin’ Sauce (made with almonds, grapeseed oil and other natural ingredients) for $5 for the 8oz. container. Maybe a little pricey, but hey, it’s local and it tasted good! I had $5 to spare to try new things. I was also drawn to the table just because of the name and tried all of the sauces and decided I wanted to try some on some pasta. The original blend has a wonderful garlic kick and I think I’ll have to pick up some of that next time I’m at the market…
It occurs to me now that I didn’t take a photo of the actual sauce… hmm. It’s kind of a weird green color but its very light. The sauce is kind of thick and would go well as a dip. I also have used it as a dressing on a chicken sandwich.
I didn’t even put all of the ingredients I used in this photo. Apparently I’m not very good at this. In any case, I used some fresh kale from our garden, some lemon basil (also from the garden), a summer squash chopped into thin pieces (sort of like sticks), crimini mushrooms, and not photoed: milk, red pepper flakes, chopped onion, chopped garlic, kosher salt and pepper.
I added Gary’s Seasoning to my veggies as I sauteed them in some olive oil. The “Hot for Mama” blend includes cayenne pepper in the mix giving it a little kick (I would have used that one instead if I hadn’t already put red pepper flakes at the start of this dish) and the “Too Hot for Mama” blend has habenero pepper in it and I’m scared to try that. I’m tempted to make something for Jake with it though…
All seasoned up! The lighting looks weird on my veggies. And there’s steam blowing up into my camera.
At this point I added some milk to the pan and added a few spoonfuls of my pesto Bitchin Sauce to make a creamy pesto sauce base. Then I put my cooked pasta into the pan, mixed it all together, and viola.
I put ribbons of the fresh lemon-basil on top of each serving of pasta. I like adding the fresh basil at the end to give the pasta a little kick in the pants. This was quite tasty! The pesto sauce was a nice, lovely accompaniment to the dish and I know Gary’s seasoning upped the flavor of my veggies to make this is a tasty veggie pasta dish. Check out Gary’s Seasoning on his website and try out the Bitchin Sauce available at various farmer’s markets around town!
I think I saw these sauces at the Poway FM on Wednesday (through the summer, there’s one on Wed and the Sat morning one). Very tasty, although I don’t think I tried the pesto one.
I think I’m going to get the original flavor next time I go to just eat it plain with some chips. I liked the garlicy flavor it had. I used to go to Poway all the time to go to the dog park and farmer’s market, but my dog is kind of a little bully with other small dogs so we stopped going!
great recipe mary! even better with ingredients from your garden too! that’s always a good thing! i like the name of the sauce (surprise surprise)!
I knew you’d like the name of the sauce, CC!
remember the song, ‘bitchin’ camaro’ by the dead milkmen? ha ha
Yes! I also like their song “Punk Rock Girl”.
I love the chipotle and pesto bitchin’ sauce. We recently found it at the farmer’s market in Little Italy San Diego! Great stuff!