My Happy List! (6.19.12)

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend! I know I did. My dad's birthday was friday, and father's day was sunday, so it was a weekend all about celebrating him! It was very fun! For his birthday, I bought him Peter Lugar Steaks ( yes, like this restaurant in Brooklyn). I bought the steaks from a local butcher which provides them with the steaks. He grilled the steaks, and I made string beans with garlic and parmesan. Dinner was fantastic and totally delicious! So, I am happy to have celebrated this whole past weekend with my dad for his birthday/father's day.

I am also happy about this cool cusinart ice cream/sorbet maker I received for my birthday over the weekend! ( my bday was a week ago, but this present was worth the wait!) so far, i've made vanilla ice cream and coconut sorbet in it, and they came out DELICIOUS! :) Take a look below!!

Vanilla Ice Cream churning

Coconut Sorbet!

I also made some homemade pesto with basil from my garden for dinner on Monday night! I am so happy that I decided to grow herbs and make pesto. I used to grow the herbs out of control and not know what to do with them. I was always afraid of making pesto, it seemed so difficult.... boy was I wrong!! It was easy peasy! Since I didn't have any pine nuts, and didn't want to go and get them in the middle of cooking, I found this blog,  Wild Roses Grow, which is the recipe I used ,and it was great!

PESTO  A large handful of basil leaves...or as many as you can pluck off your plant! ½ cup of pine nuts. (note: this can be subbed with almonds, peanuts, sunflower seeds,etc.) 3 to 4 T olive oil - I used a wegman's basting oil I have which is infused with herbs and garlic! Pinch of Salt Freshly ground black pepper 1 to 2 cloves of garlic   Next, I put everything in my food processor, and spun it. At first it was too dry, so I had to add more oil, but it is very easy to make- just do what feels right, and compare to pesto pics online (like I did!). Also, taste it- thats important, so you know whether you need more of this or that.

Homemade Pesto from my garden!

Pesto!

Also, I found these fun veggies starting to grow in my garden! Fun! I am so happy to see that my veggie plants are healthy and happy too!

My little red plum tomato! 

String Beans almost ready!

What is making you happy?!