sriracha & roasted broccoli pesto

When we were considering whether to renovate, I remembered that Adrianna at A Cozy Kitchen had a great experience partnering with KitchenAid, and reached out with all fingers crossed to see if KitchenAid might be interested in collaborating here, too. Imagine my delight when the team said yes! It’s been one of my dream brands for such a long time, from the iconic Stand Mixer to the refrigerators and ranges, that I’m overjoyed to have KitchenAid appliances as the cornerstones in my new kitchen.

Since we’re deep in renovations for the time being, I thought I’d experiment with a few KitchenAid small appliances in the meantime. In particular, I’ve been using the KitchenAid 7 Cup Food Processor, which puts my tiny old one to shame, and a countertop oven that is perfect for quick cooking needs. I’m already excited to use it on hot summer days when I don’t want to heat up the house.

The weather in LA has been cooler lately, getting brisk in the mornings but still balmy in the afternoons, and perfect to eat outside now that we actually have a yard of our own. So I took these little workhorses out to our backyard to cook while Luke and Clara gallivanted outside (or, while Luke ran around and Clara bounced in her chair with emphasis).

We discovered this summer that Luke loves pesto on anything and everything, so it was a natural contender for a new food processor. Before I got the 7 Cup Food Processor, I’d been making pesto all summer in a little 3-cup processor that used to rattle wildly and threaten to jump out of my hands every time I turned it on, plus splatter anything liquid all over everything unless I covered it up with a kitchen towel.

The KitchenAid food processor, by contrast, is just heavy enough to blend the perfect pesto without–imagine–me even having to touch it after turning it on, let alone holding it down with all my force; at the same time, it’s still light enough that I can tote it around from makeshift kitchen to backyard. It’s a snap–literally–to use, with a one-click, twist-free bowl (that doesn’t leak!) and it has a chute to drizzle in olive oil or drop in more ingredients. And as if that wasn’t enough, the bowl, lid and accessories are all dishwasher-safe (which, if we’re not exactly taking advantage of yet, will be amazing in a few months).

A typical pesto actually doesn’t require a cooktop at all–so it’s great for a renovation!–but we’ve been liking a bit of broccoli in the pesto for heft, so the countertop oven was perfect for roasting the broccoli for a bit more depth of flavor. For the batch I made for B2 and me, I also added a little Sriracha. It’s an oddity born of a college obsession with Noodles & Company’s pesto cavatappi and their penchant for keeping Sriracha on all their tables, but it really works–the Sriracha laces the pesto with a subtle heat and a little tang that complements the peppery basil and funky cheese perfectly.  I imagine a regular chili garlic paste would work great, too.

Finally, to minimize the crazy number of plastic utensils we’ve been using, I ended up spreading this pesto on toast and throwing on a few toppings, including Sriracha-roasted mushrooms (which are wholly addictive and the only way I ever want to eat mushrooms). The countertop oven is so small that I swear it cooks faster than my regular ovens have in the past; the mushrooms were done in 20 minutes, and once the pesto was layered on and draped with cheese, the toasts broiled in 4 minutes, perfectly evenly. With gadgets like these and weather this nice, I can almost forget that I don’t have a kitchen.

Thank you to KitchenAid for sponsoring this post and providing these appliances. All opinions are, as always, my own.

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