Christmas in Westminster

I wish I'd thought to photograph our Christmas meal. Don made it look quite attractive. Vince and Sharon came over for lunch. Sharon had suggested pasta with pesto since ages ago that was one of the few things I'd attempted cooking and had done pretty well with it. I've long since lost the recipe to my pesto sauce though, so settled on a jar from Albertson's. And instead of the Angel Hair we used to use, we went with Bow Tie pasta upon Don's suggestion. I bought some extra pine nuts and Sharon had reminded me we'd included sun dried tomatoes in the old recipe so we added those too....and Don thought to include a few olives. Don cooked the pasta and it came out perfect. Then, since the memory of the great asparagus and almond dish we'd had with Penny at the Marriott was still in my mind I bought some asparagus and almonds to accompany the pasta. Don found something on the Internet that suggested cooking it in the oven, so we followed it's instructions, oiling a cookie sheet, breaking off the asparagus ends where they naturally broke, drizzling olive oil over the top, seasoning with salt and pepper, and baking for 15 minutes at 325. It was great! Sharon brought salad makings---she'd found a bag of leafy greens and then filled baggies with cherry tomatos, chopped cucumbers, purple onions, carrots, and I'm not sure what else. She even brought crutons. We had a choice of Italian or Ranch. They also brought some fabulous garlic bread...we worried the 18 minute cooking time might make us late for the movie we planned to see after lunch but really by the time we served ourselves and got seated the bread was ready.
After lunch we went to see Clint Eastwood's newest movie, "Gran Torino", at the Block. I don't want to spoil it for you so I won't comment on the movie.