Pesto Pasta meal in 20 min

Ok folks … hang on… this is so incredibly quick and easy!

I have grown my own Basil and Tomatoes this summer. Today I did a huge Basil harvest and turned it into Fresh Pesto. I filled one zipper sandwich bag and it’s now frozen for winter use, the remainder I used for dinner tonight.

First off, I chose some fun multi-colored “curly pasta” that I knew Abbie would like. Tossed that into a boiling pot of water w/ salt and olive oil (the olive oil keeps the pasta separated and I NEVER rinse pasta off after cooking it)

In my Magic Bullet Blender I placed:

• Basil Leaves (washed and drained)
• Olive Oil
• Parmesan (mine was pre shredded)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Pine Nuts
• GARLIC!!! LOTS OF GARLIC (I forgot this in the original entry!!)

(I don’t use exact amounts, I cook to taste like my grandmother taught me)

Blend until it’s all mixed in well. Add additional Olive Oil, Parmesan, Salt and Pepper to taste.

Now tonight, I wanted to add a salad, but didn’t have one available, so I ran out to my container garden and pulled tomatoes off the vine, rinsed them off and tossed them into the Magic Bullet Blender and crushed them in with the Pesto mixture.

I took the mixture, put in in a sauce pan and heated it up.

I served the Pasta in bowls, added a scoop of Pesto/Tomato Sauce over it and voila’ dinner!

For Dessert I chunked up fresh Peaches and in a container they went and they sat in the freezer while we ate dinner. Once done eating, I pulled a pint of whipping cream out of the freezer, defrosted it in the microwave and tossed it into the same blender (washed of course). Grabbed the Peaches out of the freezer and tossed them in and blended it into a frothy Peach Smoothie, skin and all.

Poured it into a cup and handed it off to Abbie. She LOVED it!

The leftovers are now in a tupperware container, freezing into an ice cream type mixture for us to enjoy later.

Unfortunately my camera is not working so I don’t have a picture, but I’ll get one next time!

Encouragement...

It’s the Journey … that gets us to the end point, or at a stopping point that we can safely stop, turn around and breathe. Once there, we can look back and see that we were never alone and that it was all planned out long before we were thought about.

Jeremiah 29:11-14 (New International Version)

11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. [a] I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."

Footnotes: [a] Jeremiah 29:14 Or will restore your fortunes

While I never spent much time in Bible Study, this verse stuck with me for many years and I never understood why. Let's be real, it is so incredibly hard to do in daily life, to put our thoughts and feelings aside and to listen, to be still and hear the voice of God. To have FAITH and remember that Our Lord knows our birth date and our death date long before we are even known to exist.

I have to remind myself of that from time to time, and last week, while speaking w/ an acquaintance on Twitter, that plan He had for me came up. After David was born, I had 2 miscarriages. One was at about 20 weeks along, yes...you read that right, very late however there were problems from the beginning of the pregnancy, I was on antibiotics from the beginning of it and the baby was not developing properly at all. In fact, when I had my first ultrasound at what should have been about 14 or 15 weeks along, the baby was only 7 weeks along in development. 7 days before Christmas I began to cramp and bleed, and I knew it was over, it was confirmed on a Friday afternoon and on the Tuesday before Christmas I had a D&C to complete the miscarriage. I had permission from my doctor to get on a plane on Wednesday evening, as previously planned, and fly to California to see family down there for the holiday. It was not only emotional, but painful, and everyone there handled it well. I had drugs, those helped a lot wih the physical pain, but not the emotional pain. We spent some great time with my grandmother, not knowing that it would be her final Christmas on this earth with us. We also spent time on the beach, talk about healing...I can't put into words how refreshing that was. But I digress.

Throughout that time and the subsequent miscarriage, which happened much earlier in my pregnancy and did not require medical intervention, I questioned WHY? Why were these lives that we so desperately wanted taken from us? Why were we being punished? What did we do wrong?

We were good Christians, we went to church, we prayed as a family, we turned our lives around and were doing well. We were "older" if you will and our son wanted to be a big brother so much.

You see, I thought it was about me, about our family; I totally forgot it was about Him. I forgot that HE had a plan for me us. You see, the Lord KNEW that on June 21, 2006 he would call Mark home. He KNEW that I would be thrown into the chaos known as Widowhood AND be a single parent to a child that would fall apart and need every ounce of my energy for the next 3 years. I had NO IDEA that would happen, in hindsight, I'm pretty damn happy that I didn't know that.

• He knew that I would NOT be able to handle 3 kids on my own.
• He knew that I would rely on friends and some family to help me through
• He knew that I would need certain needs met.
• He always provided.
• He made that committment and promise to us and
• HE follows through ALWAYS!

How AWESOME is that??

A Favorite Picture ....

I have SOOO many favorite pictures but this is a recent favorite of my son, deciding to ride his skatebord w/ a garbage can full of water down the street. I quickly put the kibash on this idea of his, I'd rather have a pissed off son than a seriously injured one!

Do you have a favorite picture? Post it on your blog with an explanation and copy the MckLinky code below to add it to this BlogHop!

The Blog Hop!!

Welcome to My Personal Miniseries aka The Queens Blog. How in the world did those names come to be? Well if you read all the way back to the beginning, you will find that my life has been much like a Soap Opera. I've got several friends that have said "Queen, you need to have a 'Movie of the Week' or a Lifetime movie made of your life." My standard response has always been, "No way, My life story would at least be a Mini-series!" My life has truly been a roller-coaster of good, bad, ups and downs. In the past 3 years I lost my husband of nearly 10 years to a sudden heart attack. In an instant I became a widowed mother of a special needs son that had no means of support. The Lord was with me through the entire process though, and my Faith has deepened and the Lord has seen to it that I have been well taken care of. I became engaged in Jan 2008 to an amazing Man who treats me like his Queen. Our household includes him, myself, my son, my late husbands best friend and my step-daughter to be half time (she too has special needs) ... we have a cat and a dog ... and tons of Chaos! So there ya have it in a nutshell.

ETA ... I'm trying to comment on other MckLinky BlogHop Blogs tonight, but for some reason, Blogger isn't liking me at all!