The other day I made a great trade with my friend Anne. She would bring me some amazing tomatoes…

from her Dad’s garden in Virginia. In return, I would make her some pesto! I brought the amazing tomatoes home with me today. I ate almost an entire one tonight! It was amazing. But first a brief recap of the day.

I had a busy and long day at work – but when I got home I was still productive:

I made pesto from scratch for Anne!

The moment I got home I went out to my deck and inspected my basil plants:

I feel like I have a mommy and a baby plant. 🙂

I did my best to photograph my pesto making, step by step. First I started by roasting the pine nuts (2 tablespoons)

I de-stemmed the basil and washed it:

I smashed up the garlic, and measured out the olive oil… cooled the pine nuts. I layered everything in the mini-prep:

After a few turns around it was starting to get blended together, but there were still chunks of garlic and pine nuts…

So I kept going. Once it was a little smoother, I added a bit of parm-reg.

I tested out the pesto for dinner… I added a thin layer of pesto to a piece of multi-grain bread:

Added cheese:

Put it into the toaster oven on broil. After the cheese was melted, I added tomato from Anne’s dad and a few shavings of parm-reg

and put the creation back into the toaster oven – this time on toast. The final product – was amazing.

This was the best dinner I have had in a while. Perfect for the summer time when it is too hot to think about cooking. I really wanted another piece of this. But instead I went over to Danielle’s and ate fruit – an amazing combo of peaches and blueberries. It hit the spot!

Ok, I’m off. I am going to finish my book before I hit the hay. 😀