Mussels with Pesto and Garlic Oven Fries

photo credit to Real Simple and Christopher Baker

I'm a big fan of Real Simple recipes.  I've been saving the magazine recipe section for several years, and have a couple 3-ring binders filled with sheet protectors and the recipes.  It makes it easy for both my husband and me to pick recipes because they have a great picture for each one.  Plus, I really like that most of their recipes are quick, easy, and use fresh ingredients.  AND my husband will totally follow the recipes and make meals himself since we started using them a few years ago.

Table

With a recent trip to Cape Cod and an unappetizing visit to a seafood shack there, I was in the mood for some good seafood, so I picked this mussels recipe from Real Simple from a year or so ago.  I made the mussels in the pesto sauce per the recipe.  If you've never made mussels and are scared, I promise it's super easy - as easy as boiling pasta - and a little bit faster.  To save time, for the fries, I just bought a bag of Garlic Fries from Trader Joes.  To round out the meal with vegetables, we just had a super simple lettuce salad.

Because nectarines are in season, I decided to make a nectarine galette, another Real Simple recipe.  It's basically an open whole fruit pie, using pre-made freezer pie crust.  Mine didn't turn out as pretty as the one in the magazine (when does it ever?)  I was worried about the edges burning, so I did as suggested, and "tented" the galette with aluminum foil, but then the edges had trouble getting golden, so I ended up cooking it a little longer than the recipe suggested.

Tube

I did actually check on how long you can use refrigerated mussels via a Google search.  All the sites seemed to say as long as the mussels were out of the shells, they could be stored in the fridge for 1 - 2 days. Conveniently, that's about how long the blend lasts.  And, I do know from previously feeding my son shellfish, he doesn't have any allergic reaction.

I was interested to see how well the mussels would blend in the Blendtec... "Will it Blend?"  And, well, "Yes, it Blends!"

I don't have a lot of experience with potatoes in the blend, and after the super thick blend with sweet potato fries, I was worried about making too thick of a mixture with the potatoes.  I only added 3 oz.

I also just basically just put a whole serving of the nectarine galette (1/4 of the galette) into the tube.  It had carbs, fruit, and fats.

There's not really any whole grains in this blend, but since most of the blends I make are full of whole grains, and the typical 2 1/2 year old seems to be eating mac & cheese, chicken nuggets, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I think one day of potatoes and pie crust won't hurt.  

With the salad greens and the pesto, this blend ended up a nice rich green color.  Plus, it had a great basil-garlic smell to it.  And it blended pretty smooth.  We'll see if it gets thicker after being in the refrigerator, but so far it flowed through the syringe quite nicely.

Here's the blenderized g-tube recipe:

Whole Milk	1 cup
flavored Kefir - 1% milkfat	1/2 cup
orange juice	1/2 cup
garlic fries	3 oz
mussels, shelled	3 oz
basil pesto	1/4 cup
salad greens, fresh	4 cups
nectarine galette	1 serving
Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew
Volume (oz)	36
Cal/oz	34.6
Cal/cc	1.2
% Fat	28%
% Carbohydrates	53%
% Protein	18%