Everything in the fridge pasta!

Here we go again! I have signed up for another summer/fall of the organic vegetable baskets. So today when I got home at 6:30 I realized I haven't been to the grocery store all week. Lucky for me my vegetable crisper was overflowing with our new crop!

So here is the starting line up:
Tomatoes (from my garden)
Basil (from my garden)
eggplant (from costco :(
zucchini (from the farm basket)
swiss chard (from my garden) I know it's weird but I have to use so I figured a strange substitute for spinach)
garlic (from the farm basket)
chili flakes
parmesan
gluten free spaghetti

This is not really a recipe but for those of you that need directions here goes:
Saute the eggplant until soft over med heat with some olive oil, add the zucchini. 


Once the zucchini are soft add the tomatoes, garlic
& chili flakes. I add a bit of the pasta water to make it more of a sauce.

When your pasta is almost ready add the swiss chard and the basil.



Add the pasta to the sauce and grate parmesan toss and serve!

This entire meal can be prepared in 30 mins. The ingredients can be adjusted to what veggies you have in your fridge, I have used asparagus, broccoli, if you happen to have some Pancetta it really makes it yummy. Buffalo Mozzarella or bocconcini are good too.

Bon Appetit

Cooking for Baby!

It's been 3 weeks since I started Emily on vegetables. At first I was so excited, everyone kept making comments about how luck Em would be, cause I would be cooking for her. I guess she will be eventually, but right now there is no culinary skills need to steam, roast, boil and then puree food with no seasoning! All in all still very happy to be making all the food myself. She is being exposed to more variety than the jarred foods offer, and of course it is all fresh with no additives. Her first vegetable was carrots which as you can see by the picture she was not a fan of! I'll have to try it again soon. Vegetables that she loves so far include: butternut squash, yellow beans, sweet potato & green beans. Still to come are sweet peas, buttercup & acorn squash & zucchini. After which I will start her on fruits.

She is a great eater! She gets so excited for the food, her mouth is open and ready before I even get the spoon filled! I am loving this experience and the opportunity to give her so many different fruits and veggies. I'm not finding it too time consuming, I make a pretty big batch freeze it in an ice cube tray and then pop the cubes out into a freezer bag and defrost as needed. I have a pretty good head start so I think that will help once her appetite picks up.

Also soon I will actually get to test my cooking skills by making pureed meat taste good without the addition of salt, pepper & butter! Herbs are ok to use so I'm not too worried. We signed up for the vegetable baskets in the summer again so that will give me a chance to give her something different every week.

She will be 6 months next week and is growing up so fast, boy does time fly when your in love!

Things that make me smile

I thought I would quickly share a few things that make me smile. In no particular order

EMILY! I think when she smiles it is contagious! She has been such a positive impact on my whole family. It's really amazing for such a little person to have such a huge effect on people!

Jeremy clean shaven...it doesn't happen often so I'm very happy when it does

My dog Harley! He also has that happy effect on that when I walk him people start smiling

Flowers or in this case a painting of flowers from my favorite artist Bobbie Burgers

A good meal, preferably dinner! 

Champagne, which makes me smile so much my cheeks hurt the next day! 

My vegetable garden, it gives me a great sense of accomplishment to plant, tend to and grow some of my own food. 

The relationship I have with my husband. We have been together for almost 12 years now and I find that we are more in love and more solid now than we ever were. We just fit, it works, I love the way we interact and understand each other. We don't complete each others sentences or anything, but if we have a dinner party we complete each others actions, it is like a well choreographed play. I love that I am so in love with my husband and I love our new family. 

photo taken by Annalie Young http://annalieyoung.com/

I thought I was tired!

I find it hilarious that Emily (my 5 month old) sleeps for about 10 hours, wakes up eats plays for about an hour and then goes back to sleep! It's amazing, she is exhausted after being up for 2 hours. Maybe the parents have it all wrong and the kids aren't tiring us out and it's the other way around.

Emily has also made me think more about the saying "fall asleep" because sometimes she literally looks like she fell and then went to sleep! Check out some of Em's favorite sleeping positions, I think her favorite is the face plant!

To Blog or not to Blog & how much to blog!

A lot has happened that I should have been writing about in the last few months. First and foremost I had a baby! A beautiful baby girl named Emily. Jeremy and I couldn't be happier, we now have what we have wanted for such a long time...a family. Each day we learn something new courtesy of our 5 month old!

So where does this leave my blog? Well for a while I literally moved from the kitchen to the couch! But now I am back in the kitchen, not as much as before but enough not to have to go into the freezer for meals anymore. I am trying to find the balance between being a mother, a wife and a cook. Somedays are easier than others but I'm not complaining....well not too much!

I hope to find the time to continue to blog, not so much for my die hard 4-5 followers! but for me, it is a good outlet and in some ways a journal. I will continue to post recipes and cooking tips, but will now also be blogging about life with a baby and the many things they teach us. I think what took me so long to start writing again is the fear of sharing too much info. I hope to find the right level of info and stories to share so that my readers are interested but while still keeping some things for just me and Jeremy.

So tune in for many stories to come! And pictures!