Experiment in the Kitchen - Pesto

Tonight I have managed the seemingly impossible! After many months of longingly wishing to make home-made Pesto (and not getting off my ass to get the ingredients for it) I have gone forth and done so!
This is not as easy as it sounds - or, at least, it wasn't for me. The biggest set back? Acquiring fresh basil here in Ohio. In California, fresh herbs are in every supermarket. So I never thought about the potential difficulties in acquiring fresh herbs with which to cook with. I'd just go to the supermarket and pick some up, right?
Wrong! Apparently here in Ohio it is a monumental task to track down and purchase some fresh basil. Luckily, after calling a couple stores (and one abortive attempt to visit the grocery store we frequent) I found a store that carried some. I went there (in the pouring rain... wtf with the weather here?!?) and located their little plastic blister packs of fresh herbs. Wary because I couldn't view the contents easily, I got all the packs they had - 4 - in the hopes that between them there would be enough basil that wasn't bad which I could use to make the sauce.

Experiment in the Kitchen - Beef Stew / Biscuits / Salad / Strawberry and Raspberry Shortcake

Tonight, for the first time since we moved in, we had people over! Yay! So, of course, me being the crazy person I was, I was determined that the dinner be as awesome as I could manage.

I started with stew - which is a staple of mine. I make my stew with the following:

• 1 Can Beef Broth
• 1 Can Golden Mushroom (Campbell's)
• 1 sm pkg Baby Carrots
• Approx. 4 Stalks of Celery (sliced small)
• 3 lg (or 6 sm) Red Potatoes (sliced into bite-sized chunks)
• Approx. 2# Beef Stew Meat
• 1 pkg (or equiv) Instant Mashed Potatoes

Experiment in Life - Moving to Ohio

This week's experiment? Driving cross-country with two young children! Sounds kinda crazy, huh? We are actually currently on day 3 (everyone is still asleep - I, for some reason, woke up at 6:30am). Day one saw us driving from the North Bay area of California down to San Luis Obispo, CA. We got a hotel there, saw some friends, did some rather necessary shopping for things (books on cd, drinks for the car, etc) and then headed out at around 1:00 pm. This set us back a bit - we were actually suppose to drive down to SLO, visit, and then head on to Bakersfield with the intention of making Flagstaff, AZ on day 2. But, que sera sera, we are taking this trip as it comes. Day 2 saw us make it to Kingman, AZ - which is where I blog to you from now. We got a hotel at about 9 at night and thank goodness we did! I don't think the kids could have survived in the car another minute at that point!

For the most part, the kids have been well behaved. We got an in-the-car dvd player with a split screen so they can watch movies. Our eldest just had her birthday (as previously blogged about) and we bought her a Leapster handheld game thing and her Grandmother got her an mp3 player. They also have lap trays and coloring things and soe stuffed animals to keep them company. We have a cd player and got them some books on cd as well. So, you know, we have a large pool of items back there to keep them from going stir crazy.