4 Fabulous Things for Friday

#1 Saw childhood best friend Becky in the parking lot of Target. Hi Becky. It's always fabulous seeing you.

#2 Had afternoon nap then decided I should take a nap every Friday afternoon. Fabulous idea!

#3 Opened the door to get mail and was greeted by a large FedEx package. Addressed to "Jeana Ward," that's me but, mystery box, what could you be? Opened box with knife and used knife to stab the mystery contends under the packaging peanuts for safety (there could have been a decapitated human head in the box, you never know). Instead of mystery body parts, I was pleasantly surprised to find the words "congratulations" written on the box inside. It turns out I won a Good Housekeeping sweepstakes and won 14 bottles of various gourmet all natural cooking sauces. I vaguely remember entering the contest on Good Housekeeping's website. I entered every contest that seemed interesting to me. Fabulous! I won. So, that leads us to fabulous item #4.

#4 We will have salmon tonight in keeping with our "Fish Friday" schedule. And tonight's fabulous meal will be marinated in a soy ginger marinade. Just a little something I whipped out of the mystery box.

4th of July Scrap and Share

Spinach Pesto

If you are like me, you like spinach and you like to buy the big 2.5 pound bag of it at Costco because you like the cheap price. But, you don't like letting some of it go to waste and you don't like eating spinach for every meal until you have consumed all 2.5 pounds all by yourself.

So, I thought I would share one creative way I use the spinach to make a quick pesto for pasta dishes for months to come.

Spinach Pesto (I make a variation of this depending upon what ingredients I have on hand. The original recipe came from Real Simple Magazine)

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup walnuts (I sometimes use pecans)
  
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 pound baby spinach (about 10 cups)
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan (I've used feta or mozzarella before)
  
• kosher salt and black pepper

Directions:

• In a food processor, pulse the walnuts and garlic until chopped. Add the spinach, oil, 1/2 cup of the Parmesan, and 1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper. Puree until smooth, scraping down the sides of the processor bowl as necessary.
  
• Pour mixture into ice cube an tray. Put in freezer.
  
• Remove when thoroughly frozen. Pop out of ice cube trays and put into zip lock freezer bags. It can be stored up to 3 months.
• When you are ready to use the sauce, cook pasta according to the directions. Meanwhile, take 1 or 2 cubes out and let them melt in the serving dish you will use for your pasta (you may want to microwave the cubes to speed up the process). Cook and drain the pasta and pour into the serving dish over the pesto. The pesto doesn't need to be cooked and the heat from the pasta is enough to melt the pesto into creamy green sauce. Toss and combine the sauce. And serve. Add salt to taste and sprinkle with cheese.
  

I hope you enjoy this recipe. I know we always do.

Summer Visitor

This summer we were happy to welcome Chiara back to Utah. She stayed with us two summers ago as a foreign exchange student from Germany, and we all became fast friends. We were so glad that she wanted to come back. This time around she stayed with some of our neighbors because with the addition of Eva, our house and mostly our car, had less room. Luckily, the Meeks (with more room in their house because their son is on a misson) took her in. We were lucky to have her stay a week with us, while the Meeks were on vacation. That was an awesome week. Stephen and I felt like we had a sleepover party all week long. We loved the late night chats and games. I can only wish my daughters would be as "wunderbar" as her when they are her age.

Fresh from Germany, via non-stop from Paris.

Pancakes: German translation - Sehr Gut!!!

Chiara is always a good sport and joined us at This is the Place.

Sadly, we had to say auf wiedersehen too soon. Though, thanks to email, IM, mail and Google Voice, I think we will be keeping in touch for years to come.
Tschüß, Chiara.