Some stuff from my fridge that I threw together

Basically, this has been a big trying-to-use-things-up week for me. My main motivation was a long-stem artichoke turning in the fridge. The good thing about the long-stemmers is that the stem is delicious and a lot of non-main-artichoke related possibilities open up. I was really interested in getting some carbs into this dish, so after peeling the tough outer layer of the stem and slicing it into half-coins, I made some pasta dough and cut that down into linguine-width strands using the I-tossed-out-my-pasta-machine-because-I-didn't-think-I'd-ever-use-it method.

I sauteed the half-coins in a little olive oil and then put some liquid in the pan to soften them up while the pasta water got to boiling. When the stem pieces were a little softer but still al dente, I threw in some crimini mushrooms that needed to get used. Just before the mushrooms started to sweat, I poured in some red wine and let the sauce reduce. In the meantime, the pasta was ready to get cooked, which happens almost instantaneously with fresh pasta.

The sauce finished up and at the last minute I stirred in some of the pesto I made earlier in the week. Not something I would usually do to a wine sauce, but it was worth it! I lowered the heat and added the noodles to the sauce. This saucing step is essential. When you are working with a noodle dish, the noodles should remain a bit undercooked and added to the sauce at the last step so that they can cook the rest of the way in the sauce and everything gets nice and incorporated.