Kale Pesto Pasta

The last 24 hours have been AMAZING.  I got to hang out with the family and eat a bunch of cookies, got a new job (suck that, deli!),  tell the deli that I am quitting all that nonsense (I didn't even feel bad, not one bit), finally got the bread cook book that I ordered 3 weeks ago (seriously???), and hit up Penzey's Spices and bought some goodies.  Holy wow at Penzey's. I want to completely replace all of my spices with Penzey's, if not for the superior quality but for the cute containers.  There will be time for that once I live in America permanently...  Anyway, on with what I cooked first today!

I looove pesto.  I once had a friend who worked at Noodles &Company that would give me a meal for about one buck.  Needless to say, I ate at Noodles ALL OF THE TIME.  My go-to meal at Noodles has always been the pesto cavatappi, but these days I have tried to diversify what I get.  God forbid I ever get sick of pesto.  Anyway, I decided that I wanted a healthier and home made pesto sauce for some pasta, and this is what I came up with. I originally tried to grind up the kale with a spoon and a cereal bowl in a mortar-pestle fashion, but failed.  I then contemplated just chewing the kale up and spitting it out bird-style, but in the end I broke down and used my blender.  I hate my blender.  It's loud, smokes?, and is unpleasant to clean.

Ingredients

• 8-10 leaves of kale (much cheaper than basil)
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• feta cheese
• 2 peeled cloves of garlic
• salt and pepper, if desired

 Boil some water in a pot that is large enough to boil a whole piece of kale in it and to cook the amount of pasta that you want.  Add in the garlic and let the garlic boil for a few minutes.  Add in the kale piece by piece, and allow to soak for about 14 seconds (or long enough for it to mush down so that it isn't crispy anymore).  Remove the kale with a slotted spoon and place in a blender or food processor.  Once all of the kale has been boiled, add the garlic into the blender as well.  Add about 1/4 cup of the extra virgin olive oil, 1 tablespoon of cheese, and salt and pepper (I didn't add any).  Pulse or blend until everything has been torn to smithereens.  Cook pasta in the pot for recommended amount of time while this is going down.  Drain pasta, toss it in the pesto sauce, and top with more cheese. I ended up adding a lot of cheese throughout the devouring-process, I blame it on living in Wisconsin.