Domestic Bliss - Part Deux.

We don't really do pasta for lunch around here- especially during summer. But there were special circumstances, and we made an exception today. And since I'm a dork and have an iPhone camera handy, I documented it just for you.

I'm a little proud of my basil this year. Not long ago, it looked like this:

Just past the seed stage, all cute and tiny. And now, it looks like THIS:

I grew that! From SEED! :)

Our cooking lately has revolved around basil and jalapenos... because food just tastes better when you've grown it yourself. And those are our most plentiful crops at the moment. So today, since I had a free afternoon, I decided to try something I'd never made before.

PESTO.

Talk about a good way to use up a lot of delicious basil! And with the Ninja as my partner in crime, we were cookin'.

Hot damn I love that machine! Notice how in the before picture you can barely even see the top blades, and then in the after picture you can easily see all three sets of blades! The basil/walnuts/garlic/olive oil never stood a chance against the awesomeness of the Ninja. (I'm tempted to grunt like Tim the Toolman Taylor every time I fire it up.)

We had a couple of bell peppers and an onion that were all about to die, so I decided to throw them in the mix as well.

Penne or rotini would have been my first choice, but we had neither, so spaghetti it was!

And there you have it! My first attempt at pesto! If I can manage to keep the caterpillars away, this may become a recurring delight around here.

Domestic Bliss.

I found an awesome new recipe awhile back, and finally got around to trying it out today! I mean, c'mon... banana nutella muffins? Heck. Yes. So the orange wonder and I got down to business in the kitchen. It had been far too long since our last adventure together, and it was a happy reunion.

The recipe calls for a basic banana muffin, with a dollop of nutella mixed in on top. It says to use a toothpick to do the mixing, but since we don't have those in the house, I found that a chopstick worked just fine.

And they didn't have any hazelnuts at the grocery store, so I substituted walnuts. Still crunchy and delicious.

In a word: AH-MAZING. I can't wait for Leo to get home. He flips over pretty much anything involving bananas... And if he doesn't devour every last one of them, the excess will come with me to work tomorrow. Having to start a 12 hour shift at 5:30am is surely made better by muffins for all!

AND- since we had a jalapeno ripen up in the garden, I decided to do a mango salsa with dinner. I'm sharing a picture because I enjoy all the pretty colors.

I love days off work. :)

We fly through the air with the greatest of ease...

Last night, I had a dream. (Just call me MLK) And I must share it with you all because it was that awesome.

It started with Tom and I sitting in a house. I didn't recognize the house, but we were sitting at a kitchen table, discussing an upcoming trip. Apparently it was going to be fun and we were both pretty excited to get going. Next thing I know, we had set off and were headed toward our destination. But instead of driving in a car or traveling by airplane, we were flying. As in, FLYING. Technically, Tom was flying and I was along for the ride. He had his arm around me and I had my arms around a pillow as we cut through the clouds. It was nighttime, so we were looking at all the lights down below. And I just know I was very concerned about that darn pillow. As he would duck and weave through the clouds, I held on tight and told him at one point: "Don't you dare lose this pillow! It's my favorite!" As far as I could tell, we had no luggage. Just my pillow.

After flying for awhile, Tom told me it was time to land. He handed me what looked like a small backpack, and told me to put it on. Apparently it was a parachute just in case he couldn't land us without assistance. It had four straps total, and he helped me put it on "properly." Basically, one set of straps went around the front normally, and the other set went on backwards. (I've never been skydiving but I'm pretty sure that's NOT the right way to strap on a parachute.) 

We started our descent, and within seconds we were approaching an enormous house. Tom told me it was his goal to land under the kitchen table, since that was safest. (Duh.) And we more or less came in for a skid/crash landing. Chairs flew everywhere as we landed hard and went sliding across the dining room floor. We breathed a sigh of relief, and began to take off our unnecessary parachutes. 

Suddenly, a dark figure came out of the shadows and we were being pelted with pink paintballs. The figure clearly didn't want us in his house, but as we ran for cover, Tom started to talk to him. He set down his paintball gun, and as I looked up, I saw, standing before us, Michael Jordan. BASKETBALL SUPERSTAR, Michael Jordan. Apparently it was his house we had been planning this big trip to! And apparently we were all friends. 

Michael apologized for the confusion and led us to his guesthouse, where we'd be staying. Yep- staying at Michael Jordan's house... no biggie. 

The end. 

Tom used to tease me all the time about my crazy dreams. He accused me more than once of smoking crack before bedtime... I just love that this time around, he was IN the crazy dream.

The 1LT Tom Martin Foundation launched a new project last week called "Keeping TIME." If only we could have taken pictures at Michael Jordan's house wearing a few of those shirts, it would've been a TRULY great dream.