Pesto Challenge and Baking Day!

First of all, Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!! It's FINALLY cold here in Alabama!! But I'm sure it will get a little warmer again before it stays cold, and that's fine with me. But since it is about to get cold I really need to find some uses for fresh Basil before my basil plant dies. I'm kind of sick of my go-to pesto recipe, so I did a little searching and found 3-4 new recipes. Today I made 1 of each, taste tested to see which one we liked best, and stored an abundance of pesto in the freezer for cooking this winter. The recipes I made were


1) Easy Pesto
2) Simple Garlic and Basil Pesto
3) Pesto Sauce

And the winner is..........Simple Garlic and Basil Pesto!! Except I accidently burnt the pine nuts when I was toasting them, so I ended up using ~1/4 cup pine nuts, ~1/8 cup walnuts and 1/8 cup almonds (all toasted). I also only used about 3/4 cup of olive oil. The other two weren't bad, but the simple garlic and basil pesto was by far my favorite.

I also made beer can chicken for dinner and 4 loaves of pear bread (2 are for work, 1 to freeze for later use, 1 to eat now). Consider this your recipe of the month post :) Our home has smelled amazing all day. We took a break in the middle of all of this cooking to take Bailey to Petco. Our neighbors invited us to a Friends and Family "Pre-opening" of the new Petco. Bailey loved checking out the new store and playing with her friend Kingston (stay tuned to learn more about Kingston). We bought her another tag silencer since she somehow managed to chew off the first one we got her.

I don't really have any pictures of the pesto because it wasn't that exciting or pretty to take pictures of. Here are some pics of the pear bread and of Bailey "helping." Sidenote: Doesn't she look like that creepy old guy from Family Guy's dog, Jesse? Haha. Gross but that's what she reminded me of in this pic.

Oh, and one more thing....Let's Go Phillies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!