Try Something New Today

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Proverbs 22:6

Today everyone in the Cheek household is learning something new! I am making pesto for the first time and the kids learned to make their sandwiches all by themselves.  We all had fun finding something new that we can do. We are trying to slowly learn how to garden while living in a townhouse.  Last year was the first time we have had any sort of garden since we lived in our old home.  This year we planted green peppers, yellow and red tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and basil.  I tried to pick the things we ate the most of since we only have a 4x4 foot spot on the side of our porch to "farm" haha.   

If you love basil like I do than you will love that it only takes 5 ingredients to make pesto. I found the recipe on a random site from my search on "what to do with basil". I am hoping to make a post out of this once I have collected all my recipes that I am trying out this summer. (here is the site if you want it, I did make it my own since I did not have all the ingredients and it tastes fine.) I never realized how quick and easy easy this was.  I am making this a new favorite for our dinner menus.

What you will need:

• 2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed 
• 1/2 Cup Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 Cup olive oil
• 1/4 Cup Pine nuts (I substituted with walnuts)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced 
• salt and cracked black pepper to taste
  

First make sure you wash your basil with cold water and pat dry before throwing it into your blender. Mix everything in your food processor or blender and pulse a few times. Make sure you scrap the pesto off the sides to get everything blended well. To tell it is done it will look more like a paste.  The sauce still had a little texture to it but was definitely a pasty look to it.  I can not wait to mix this tonight with my penne pasta and cherry tomatoes for dinner! 

So, as I was making the pesto the kids were getting hungry and I thought why not let them try to make their own sandwiches.  (Do not worry they used a butter knife) They were so excited. Johnny got out everything they needed to make their sandwiches and they pulled their stools up to the counter.  It was so cute.  Liora had a big glop of mayonnaise on her bread which I forgot to take a picture of. i was cracking up.  Sometimes I need to remind myself that they are learning and how else are they to learn but by doing.  This was the perfect thing for them to make.  I clicked a few pictures and was able to make my sauce in the few minutes they were making their sandwiches.  They felt like big stuff talking to each other about their sandwich they made showing it off to one another as little chefs.  I was so proud of my 3 1/2 year and 5 year old for their first recipe (as they call it) with no help from mama.  They also cleaned up together, putting everything away.   

Accomplishing something new today was great and we all felt like we conquered something!