Project pesto

I have a little herb garden! After wishing I had fresh herbs for YEARS (seriously, probably 10+ years I have wanted to grow herbs) I finally planted myself a little patch. I have basil, thyme, sage, and rosemary. One of these days I want to plant dill. I planted these at the beginning of June, and frankly, I am surprised they have made it this long. I am NOT a gardener, and I really have no idea what to do with plants. When I got these little guys, it had probably been about 7 years since I have planted anything, and I had to call my mom to have her tell me step-by-step what to do. They have not only survived, they have all doubled in size since they were planted.

I needed to use up some of the basil, so I decided pesto would be the easiest solution. And bonus...Gabby LOVES pesto. It is her sauce of choice for pasta (likes it better than marinara, meat sauce, or butter/olive oil) and she also prefers it on pizza over regular red sauce. Every time we make homemade pizza, Gabby always asks, "will one of them be GREEN PIZZA?? Green is my fave-wit." So we always do one with pesto, fresh mozzarella, goat cheese, and pine nuts. THAT is her favorite...she won't eat regular pepperoni pizza, but she goes nuts over pesto, goat cheese, and pine nuts.

She was so excited to make pesto. After breakfast I asked, "Do you want to go swimming first, or do you want to make pesto with our basil?" She totally chose pesto over swimming.

Her job was to pull the leaves off the stems. She was really thorough...even plucked all the little baby leaves.


Posing proudly with her pile of leaves-


She always gets into some sort of mischief when we cook. This time it was picking up flakes of salt that had scattered on the counter top and licking them off her finger. Here she is cracking up while hunting for more salt flakes.

Our beautiful finished product! Tonight we are having linguine with pesto and grilled fish.

And don't you love her sweet little bob?! We finally chopped it off last week. Every time I get her hair cut, she tells me afterwards that she wishes it was shorter. So we went short this time, and she was so pleased. She checked herself out in the mirror all afternoon long. Her friend Gwen was her inspiration...she wanted hair like Gwen's. After it was cut, Gabby was so excited..."MOM! I can't wait to show Gwennie my hair! She gonna be so excited to see my hair! My hair is just like Gwennie's now! She gonna LOVE my hair!"