Solar Power!

Ricky left yesterday for Washington, D.C. to compete in the annual Solar Decathlon competition. In his final semester at UK, he worked with a team of engineers to design a solar powered house from the ground up. Over the summer, I would occasionally come by as he worked on the house and when we left, the design was complete but only a sturdy steel frame with some dry wall was complete on the construction end. Ricky sent these pictures last night of the house and as you can see, it's considerably more complete! There will be more pictures to come but I wanted to get these up first....

So I'm at home hanging out by myself until he returns. I have plans to do some deep cleaning, reorganize our heavily stocked pantry and hang out with my friend, Dr. Norma.

Everyone always asks me what good recipes I have tried lately. A few weeks ago I made this one from Allrecipes.com and it was delicious! I recommend making your own pesto sauce because that's what we did and I think it makes a BIG difference. I used scallops instead of shrimp because that's what I had on hand. You can also use half and half instead of all heavy cream as well as whole wheat linguine.

Creamy Pesto Shrimp

INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)
1 pound linguine pasta
1/2 cup butter
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup pesto
1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined

DIRECTIONS
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add linguine pasta, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, or until al dente; drain.
In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Stir in cream, and season with pepper. Cook 6 to 8 minutes, stirring constantly.
Stir Parmesan cheese into cream sauce, stirring until thoroughly mixed. Blend in the pesto, and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, until thickened.
Stir in the shrimp, and cook until they turn pink, about 5 minutes. Serve over the hot linguine.

Finally, I'd like to officially congratulate Chris and Annalee Taylor as they recently discovered they are having a baby boy! I'm so excited that I get to spoil a little boy in addition to Mary Jacqueline and Samara's little girl, Samara:)