Day Four hundred and eight

Dinner: Pasta pesto salad (brown rice fusilli with pesto, mozzarella, and grape tomatoes), chicken spinach sausage, fresh pineapple, and steamed veggies.

School lunch: Rolled deli turkey and cheddar, ants on a log, pretzel sticks, and an orange.

Day Three hundred and fifty-five

Dinner: Brown rice penne with homemade pesto with cherry tomatoes and fresh mozzarella (this is seriously one of my favorite dinners), sliced chicken breast, and green beans.   When making the pasta, add the cheese and tomatoes into the pot when the pasta is very warm, it all marries and the flavors heightens. 

Per a request, here's the pesto recipe: In a food processor, combine 2 c. well-packed basil leaves and 1/4 c. chopped nuts (pine nuts or walnuts). Pulse till shredded, then add 2 cloves of garlic, 1/2 c. olive oil, 1/2 tsp. kosher salt, and 1/4 tsp. ground pepper, and pulse again. Add 1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese, and pulse until smooth, pushing down as needed. If you’d like to freeze this in a jar for later use, don’t add the cheese until it’s been thawed and you’re ready to serve it.

Gluten-free cornbread (recipe: Gluten-free on a shoestring).  This was two days before Thanksgiving, so I was already in cooking mode.  I made a double batch of this- one for my daughter to bring to school for her Thanksgiving feast, and another to use in the stuffing for the turkey.

Day Two hundred and eighty-one

Buttermilk blueberry breakfast cake (Alexandra's kitchen).  I made a few changes- half whole wheat pastry flour, half applesauce instead of all oil, and I made an oat-topping to sprinkle on the top before baking. This is an awesome recipe, and it makes so much that we eat it for two days. Mmm.

Breakfast: Blueberry breakfast cake and fresh peaches.

Basil and walnuts in the food processor, about to be...

Pesto!  I love, love, love that I picked the basil leaves right off the plant and within 20 minutes we were eating them as dinner.  This pasta salad was "wacky mac shapes" (I let my daughter pick it out at the store) with homemade pesto, chunks of fresh mozzarella, and a handful of grape tomatoes from the garden. This was YUM.

Dinner: Pesto pasta salad and fresh strawberries.  Btw, here's my recipe.  In a food processor, combine 2 c. well-packed basil leaves and 1/4 c. chopped nuts (pine nuts or walnuts). Pulse till shredded, then add 2 cloves of garlic, 1/2 c. olive oil, 1/2 tsp. kosher salt, and 1/4 tsp. ground pepper, and pulse again. Add 1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese, and pulse until smooth, pushing down as needed. If you’d like to freeze this in a jar for later use, don’t add the cheese until it’s been thawed and you’re ready to serve it.