Jul 21, 2011

Homemade Pesto!


In my wee little garden I planted some basil. I planted this basil for the sole purpose of making pesto! :O) In the past I have purchased pre-made pesto from the grocery store and while it is very good...it is also kind of expensive. Making this was so easy...here's how.
Ingredients:
4 cups of fresh basil
3-4 garlic cloves
1/4 cup walnuts
3 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
salt and pepper (to taste)
lemon juice

Step 1:
Combine walnuts and garlic in food processor. Pulse until ground together...but not too much, you don't want walnut dust. 
Step 2: 
Add basil a little at a time and pulse. Do this until all of your basil is incorporated and it is a thick paste. It should look like this:

Step 3:
Slowly pour the 3 tablespoons of olive oil into the food processor while hitting the pulse button until the thick paste becomes smooth. I actually added a little more after 3 tablespoons because I thought it was still "chunky" and not as smooth as I'd like. 

Step 4: 
Add in the parmesan cheese...and pulse away again.
Tada


Step 5:
Put pesto into an ice cube tray, cover each cube with a thin layer of olive oil, and put it in the freezer.   



I can't wait to try some on some pasta. Being that I froze it, all I have to do is pop one or two out and throw it on some hot pasta. YUM :O)

**The quality of the pictures is not up to par...but the camera decided to go on the fritz tonight, and so these pictures were taken from the iPad...which surprisingly takes awful, grainy pictures.

Jul 16, 2011

Better in the middle of the month than never right???

Here is my plan for dinners this month.

A few meals have not happened...due to the heat. Meatloaf? Really, what was I thinking??

The next week it is supposed to reach the 90s possibly...this is H-O-T for western NY. It is however a relatively low heat required type of week in terms of meals :O)

Here it is:

JULY DINNERS

Jul 14, 2011

Out of school for 10 years...yikes

This is one of those, "wow its been 10 years already" and "man, only 10 years" things.

On one hand it didn't seem possible that we (my classmates and I) graduated from our little ol' school 10 years ago...and on the other it was like "man it seems like forever ago".


To be honest though, not much has changed. One of us commented that for the most part we all look the same. There are some additions to classmates...significant others, spouses, babies, toddlers, and children. But, for the most part we all already knew that--ahh the beauty of Facebook.


We enjoyed a nice afternoon together having a potluck dinner, some pool time, corn hole, and kan jam. Following this, some of the boys organized a band on the beach and so we continued our evening at Barcelona.

It was nice to catch up and be reminded of some great years. Hopefully our 20th will be just as great...I'm thinking we will look different for that one. :O)

Jul 13, 2011

Wordless Wednesday--the beauty around us


*Lake Erie--July 9, 2011
*Photo by Sarah Myers


 

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