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.