I should mention that it has rained here this past week. A lot. We had the tropical storm come through that made mushrooms grow in my backyard. Big mushrooms. Larger than my foot mushrooms. Even the cats didn’t want anything to do with these mushrooms.

But, with all of the rain, my basil was happy. Happy and getting very big, so I decided to make one of my all time favorite (summer) comfort food dishes – pesto. I took the basil from my herb box – the one Leia doesn’t sleep in so I have some herbs – and made a garlicky pesto with hazelnuts. I had some beautiful parmigiana from our last cheese box, so I used that to make a bright and fresh pesto.

I also made one of my favorite breakfast comfort foods this week – waffles. Real, buttermilk waffles. Bob loves these and Sunday morning, we decided that waffles were in order. I *may* have overfilled the waffle iron once, but it didn’t matter – it was what came out of the waffle iron that was important. Crispy outside, tangy, buttermilk waffles.

None of this was very fancy, and none of it was particularly exciting, but it worked this week. We are still getting use to not having Jessie around. I’m still watching where I step and looking for her when I come home. The cats have been a big help, although I do get a little teary-eyed when it comes to feeding them dinner. Mom compared it to the kids going to kindergarten or off to college – it just feels different and it takes time to adjust.

But in the meantime, I still have the cats, Bob, school, work, the house and a possible trip to keep me occupied. And, hopefully, some new and interesting foods to experiment with this summer.