2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 cup pesto
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil

1. Whisk together pesto, vinegar and olive oil.
2. Combine tomatoes with vinaigrette and serve immediately.

Makes 4 servings

12 medium button mushrooms, stems removed
1/4 pound lean ground beef
1/2 cup tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup mozzarella, grated
salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line the mushrooms on a baking sheet and bake until tender, about 10 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, heat a large skillet over medium heat and add the ground beef. Cook until no longer pink, then add the tomatoes, parsley, garlic and season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. Remove the mushroom caps from the oven and fill with tomato beef mixture. Top with mozzarella and return to the oven. Reserve remaining sauce.
5. Set oven to broil and brown the cheese on the mushrooms. Serve immediately on top of remaining sauce.

Makes 4 servings

4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup fresh basil
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup walnuts
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, halved
1/4 cup cream
salt and pepper

1. Combine garlic, basil and walnuts in a food processor until well combined. Gradually add oil while processing to form a pourable sauce.
2. Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper. Heat a large skillet over medium heat and add the chicken breasts. Fry until lightly browned, then flip and continue cooking until the center is no longer pink and juices run clear.
3. Remove chicken breasts and keep warm.
4. Add cream and prepared pesto to the pan. Stir to combine, then add the chicken breasts, reheat and serve.

Makes 2 servings

We checked out the Jean Talon market today and I was in heaven. If money were never an issue, I'd go here on a daily basis. The produce is of excellent quality and all of the food at the vendors looked delicious. Fresh garlic, peppers (hot or sweet) and loads of fresh herbs are also available. I bought a basil plant the size of a small rubber tree plant for ten dollars. So, I made pesto. I bought walnuts instead of pine nuts because they're so much cheaper. I actually used far too many, which is why the pesto is more of a brown than green color. That and because I don't have a mortar or food processor, so it's very difficult to mash or puree much of anything.

I used the pesto to make Pesto Chicken. I wanted to make some pasta with a pesto cream sauce to go with it, but I didn't feel like going to the store to get cream. The chicken breasts were still good by themselves, of course, but I think the pesto would have benefited from being thinned out a little bit. Along with the basil I picked up some sweet red and yellow cherry tomatoes and made a Pesto Tomato Salad with some of them. Basil and tomatoes are so good together and even better when the tomatoes are still warm and fresh.

To use up the leftover ground beef from the Catalina Salad and the tomatoes from the Chicken Fajitas, I made some Bolognese Stuffed Mushrooms. I was under the impression that the mushrooms we'd picked up were stuffer size, but they barely held a teaspoon of filling. A simple tomato meat sauce is good enough to eat by itself in my books, so I just ate the mushrooms along with it in the end.