simpletruths

Basil

So we get a box of produce delivered every on Friday through Farm Fresh to You.  I love it - especially since there are weekends when we just don't have the time to do a full farmers market produce trip.  Now, what I usually do is take a look online and see what is going to be in the box for the upcoming week.  I didn't do that this week and subsequently ended up with a lot of basil. A LOT of basil.  Mr. Man bought a pack at Trader Joe's for some "sandwich extraordinaire" he was planning, and then a big bunch of purple basil arrived in our box.

All of this basil - and the sandwich only used about 3 leaves total. hmmm. I'm not sure what you do when you have more basil that you can use before it goes bad, but I now have frozen basil, dried basil, and pasta sauce galore - because we also had about 8 heirloom tomatoes waiting patiently to be used in something. :)

I've heard you can just toss the basil into a ziplock and freeze away but its more fun to freeze them sliced up and ready to go in ice cubes like this:

and then once they're frozen solid, pop them into a bag like this:

And even though I used the purple basil in the photo below, I really used the green in the actual sauce. I think green basil holds up better in pasta sauce flavor-wise...but our green basil was looking a little wilted and sad so it didn't get to be in the picture.

 

basil, mushrooms heirloom tomatoes, onion, sweet peppers and carrots  becomes sauce

 

Vegetables are yummy

So, I like spinach. I pretty much always have. 

I would have to give credit to both Popeye and my mom for my childhood spinach enjoyment.  My mom really did a good job of making most veggies a regular part of everyday food eating, as they should be; It wasn't until MUCH later in life that I found out that all lasagna wasn't made with spinach...I KNOW!   All-in-all, I like veggies -

except in the case of lima beans - there's just no redeeming value to the lima bean...icky.

Luckily, I'm a grownup now so I don't have to eat lima beans if I don't want to.

My little guy seems to have quite the sweet tooth so, in my attempts to foster his savory side I've been making these by the sheet full:

delicious looking right?

These are spinach, cheese, breadcrumbs, egg yolk, garlic powder and thyme.  I've made variations with broccoli and I have a few asparagus I might experiment with this weekend.  Most recently I've made some with spinach and ground chicken. They freeze wonderfully, they travel well, they satisfy my little guy's desire to feed himself, my desire to introduce new flavors to him...and our apparent mutual dislike for most things pureed.

broccoli

So right now these are my favorite 'baby food' but I'm not sure what the next step is. He loves freeze dried fruit - he occasionally has texture issues and doesn't want to touch anything mushy, but with a couple of packs of freeze dried bananas, blueberries or strawberries on hand we're good to go. He also like sweet potatoes, potatoes and eggplant (sometimes).  He liked grapes a couple of weeks ago but apparently he's on the 'outs' with grapes right now.

Meanwhile, this is what the Mr. and I ate for dinner. Yup, another pizza. We like to make pizza. It's easy, it's also the most delicious way to eat bunch of veggies sitting on some bread.

3 years

Earlier this week Mr. and I celebrated out 3rd wedding anniversary. We met in college 11 years ago, started dating a semester after that and we've been together since then.  We met before either of us was able to by an alcoholic drink - and now here we are 11 years later with a son who's about to turn one and in the process of buying our first home. 

 Taken today - out for a walk at the Berkeley Marina.

 At our one year anniversary - a year before we had Isaiah. Don't we look well rested?

 At a friends' wedding in NY - good times.

 "we be clubbin!"

being silly somewhere in Berkeley

 

He's a wonderful husband, friend, and partner in parenthood.

Happy Anniversary!