Pesto Production

First of all - thank you so so so much for all of the wonderful name suggestions!  A lot of our top choices were brought up and some great new ones to consider.  We'll just have to wait and see... we keep changing our minds by the day!

 

I don't know about you, but we've got a bumper crop of basil this year.  I've already made about 6 batches of pesto, and it still just keeps growing taller and thicker.

So I set my little farmer to work this afternoon picking as much basil as her little heart desired.  This is such a great job for the littlest of kids, because you don't have to worry about them picking the "right" part of the plant or harvesting anything under or overripe, and the leaves get so nice and large that they're easy to get a hold of.

She was utterly thrilled with her task.

After filling up our entire colander (and leaving the plants looking like they weren't even touched :),  we set to work making pesto using the following recipe.  I'm not quite sure where it came from, but it's the one my mom always uses, and it tastes delicious.

 

Pesto

1/4 cup almonds or walnuts

2 T pine nuts

1/2 t salt

1/4 t pepper

2 cloves garlic

1 T softened butter

1 cup firmly packed basil leaves

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Throw everything in a food processor or blender - except the olive oil - and process to combine.

Then add in the olive oil and process until smooth.  

Pretty easy, eh?  It can be refrigerated for about a week, and freezes wonderfully.  I make tons and tons during the summer so I can eat it all winter long.  And seriously - I eat pesto on everything.  On top of salmon and chicken, in grilled cheese sandwiches, as a pizza base, in pasta (of course), and I like to mix it half and half with mayo to use on turkey sandwiches.  Mmmm....

If you don't have any basil growing where you live, feel free to come over here and take some off our hands!

Name our baby please!

I am incredibly lucky in that my mom just happens to be an ultrasonographer.  So while my "official" ultrasound isn't until Friday, I got to find out a couple of weeks ago if this baby is going to be a boy or a girl.

We got a big wave showing off all five fingers from this little GIRL!

I'm so thrilled that Phoebe will have a sister to grow up with, because even though my own sister and I fought like crazy, she is my best friend and most dear person to me in the entire world. 

So now I've kicked into planning mode, trying to figure out what we're going to do with the nursery situation - I'm planning on them sharing a room down the road, but would still like to set up a small little corner in our room for the first couple of months.  However, Phoebe is still in her crib and sleeps wonderfully, so I really don't want to rush getting her into a big girl bed.  But if I don't have a crib, it seems pretty pointless to set up a nursery, don't you think?  I'm going back and forth between being practical, and wanting to create a cute little nook just for the fun of it :)

Another item of big discussion has been what we're going to name this little girl.  We already used our favorite name on Phoebe of course, so we've got about 7 or 8 different contenders in the ring.  Something pretty, not trendy...  We really like vintage names.  

Any suggestions that go well with Phoebe?  I've been scouring Nameberry like crazy!

Do you think they'll look alike :) ?

A cake for my own birthday girl

To be honest, I have been so burnt out on baking lately that I really wasn't looking forward to making Phoebe's birthday cake - especially since I had just made 2 dozen cupcakes for a small playgroup birthday celebration for her just the day before.  But I knew that I would feel like a terrible mother if I spent all this time making cakes for strangers, then totally bail on my daughters own birthday.

So I kept it reasonably simple.

Phoebe loves all things fish and we spend lots of time watching Finding Nemo, taking field trips to the pet store, and most of bathtime is spent pretending she's a fish swimming in the ocean.

Everything on the cake is fondant, including these little guys that I hand sculpted until about 1:00 in the morning the night before her birthday.

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.  Now if I could only find someone to do all of the baking, frosting making, and stacking of the cakes and leave just the decorating up to me, I'd be a happy camper.

Phoebe's only request for her cake was that it was "schockalate", so I think she was pretty excited to see that she got some sugary fishes too.

Here's the birthday girl herself before gobbling up fishy number three.