Pesto how we love you!

Here at our household, the easier the dinner usually the better the outcome-hence our love of pesto. My father in law grows the basil and then at the peak of summer he whips up huge batches of pesto. He then freezes it in zip-locks to eat during the winter. Luckily for us he has been giving us a lot of them lately and we have been eating it up! I don't have his exact recipe (not sure that he uses one) but I do know that he doesn't add parmesan cheese to it-they prefer to add the cheese at the end and I prefer to not have it at all. Usually he mixes up basil, pecans, garlic, olive oil, and some salt and it is perfection! My own additions to this dinner were a salad of spinach, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, finely diced celery and carrots, some avocado and a small amount of goat cheese topped with a homemade vinaigrette. To complete the meal I whipped up some wild rice salad with cranberries. This recipe is from "The Candle Cafe" cookbook, and I love it! The Candle Cafe is in NYC and someday I want to eat there!!!

Wild Rice Salad
1 cup black long-grain or other wild rice
1/4 cup sunflower seeds, soaked overnight if desired
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup chopped red onions
1/4 shoyu or tamari
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp grated orange or lemon zest

Combine the cooked rice with sunflower seeds, cranberries and red onion. Whisk together other ingredients and pour over the rice mixture. Thats it! Another great thing about this rice is that it keeps well for leftover purposes.

Enjoy!