Last night’s dinner took advantage of the herbs that are bursting in the garden.

Farfalle is a favorite pasta shape for the guys. We picked some basil leaves, sprigs of thyme and a few chives for our pesto bow-tie pasta. The guys prefer a combination of green herbs to mix with the extra-virgin-olive-oil, cheese and pignolia nuts rather than a straight-up basil pesto.

It is a little more complex in flavor and they also like the pignolia nuts to be lightly toasted.

The herb pesto pasta is a go-to dish on Meatless Monday. We have taken the pledge to go meatless on Mondays for a healthy family diet and to be a part of the movement to make good choices for the environment.

The guys actually had to have it pointed out to them that they were no longer eating any meat dishes every Monday night. Creative menu choices meant they hadn’t even noticed.

The Meatless Monday movement also encourages parents and caregivers to take the pledge and cook with your children once a week. Monday is statistically proven as the day of the week most people are open to making healthy changes.

The guys will eat leftovers. But they don’t want it served the exact same way. That’s just wrong according to them. So, how to revisit the herb pasta bow-tie-leftovers? Add two of their favorite ingredients.

Organic chicken sausage and hickory-smoked bacon. Our market has only been carrying one brand of organic chicken lately and it’s very expensive. The organic chicken sausages are a good alternative for the guys to have some protein and the bacon pieces add a nice crunch to the dish.

As we discussed in the previous post, think of your grill as an oven. The easiest and most flavorful way to cook bacon is in the oven. The same can be done on your grill.

Set a wire baker’s rack over a sheet pan. Bacon in the oven, or on the grill, doesn’t curl and the residual fat from the bacon will drip through the wire rack and onto the sheet pan.

Just like we discussed in the previous post about having a  hot and cold zone on the grill the chicken sausages will cook on the hot zone and the pan will go on the cold zone.

The pan itself won’t be sitting on a direct source of heat but will be surrounded by the heat from the grill when the lid is closed.

All ingredients are tossed together after the bacon cools, drains on some paper towels, and is crumbled into pieces. Don’t ever get those bacon bits in a can. There’s no taste like fresh cooked bacon.

Stop by at Parade and check out my post on ketchup for summer grilling season inspired by Bobby Flay.

http://parade.condenast.com/306337/aliceknisleymatthias-2/how-i-learned-to-make-homemade-ketchup/

Tomorrow is Friday. See you then!