Meatless Monday Manfood Lunchbox Edition: Sun-Dried Tomato and Mushroom Pesto Pasta Salad

I realize today is Wednesday, but…I really should get better at coordinating days with posts. Oh well.

Pretty convinced that my middle school teachers disliked me. Although I was a great albeit sometimes lazy student, I possessed what they liked to call an “interesting” sense of style. Obviously they missed the memo that Clueless-style was fabulous, not “interesting.” There wasn’t a giant flower ring I didn’t have to have. Cher and friends frequented Contempo Casuals and thus it became my favorite store. In the eighth grade, I planned my first day of school outfit for weeks before settling on a white pleather skirt, black knee-high boots, black t-shirt, oversized rings for every finger, and a construction worker’s lunch pail.

A lunch pail?

Yep. I searched long and hard for the perfect vintage lunch pail. When I finally found it, I slathered the aging metal in white paint and shellacked (real word!) it with pictures torn from the pages of my favorite fashion magazines. Twas a beauty.

Despite a broken latch that kept throwing my PB&J sandwiches to the ground, I marched into that first day of school with pride, convinced I’d be the coolest girl in school.

I wasn’t.

I might’ve been the weirdest.

I might’ve heard:

“My, my Katie. Those are some big rings.”

“My, my Katie. That’s an interesting lunch box.”

“My, my Katie. That’s a, um, skirt?”

I might’ve thought:

“My, my, Teacher. You’re so afraid of any child who dares to be stylish and bookish.”

When it comes to this recipe, however, the only thing to be afraid of is the post-lunch garlic breath. As this is a Meatless Monday Manfood recipe, it’s not necessarily one I’d pack in my sadly boring tupperware containers, but Soon-to-be-J.D. likes it for its high pasta-to-veggie ratio and its tastiness right from the office fridge.

Hmm. Think a construction lunch box would be a good law school graduation gift?

Sun-Dried Tomato and Mushroom Pesto Pasta Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 8.3 oz jar of sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil
• 3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
• 1 pint button mushrooms, quartered
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 1/4 cup fresh basil
• 4 T balsamic vinegar
• Olive oil
• 1 box of pasta, cooked (obviously, right?)

1. Add all ingredients except for olive oil to a food processor. With food processor running, drizzle in olive oil until mixture is smooth. Like so:

2. Combine pasta and pesto. Serve or package into tupperware and put in fridge for a meatless week. It’s best when cold.