Week 24 in Review

The Score
Eaters - 9.5    Compost - 1     Carry Over - 0.5

Back to school week in combination with birthday week was pretty crazy around this place.  Though I didn't do a good job of getting photos of most of what we ate this week, we did a fair amount of cooking and had a lot of fun as a family!  As our twins get older, it is fun to bring them more and more into the process of making the food, as opposed to just being consumers of the end product.  With that in mind, I documented our afternoon spent making their birthday dinner.  They were SO happy with the end result, and were really excited that they helped make the meal.  I see many more "family" dinners like this in our future!  Note: as you will see our twins are fraternal, but the fact that they are wearing the same t-shirt is HIGHLY unusual (they were trying to be supportive of Dad's favorite team, which sadly opened their season with a loss that day).

The Best

The well method of pasta making

Knead, knead, knead

Making rigatoni

Drying out the pasta for a few minutes

Meanwhile, carefully chopping up lots of CSA tomatoes for the sauce

Favorite sweet tomato sauce: saute 1 carrot, 1 stalk celery, 2 cloves garlic and 1 small onion (all diced) in a few Tbs olive oil for about 10 minutes; fill the pan with lots of tomatoes (whatever is fresh); after about 10 minutes the tomatoes will have broken down and sauce will start to thicken; add 8-10 leaves fresh basil, and salt and pepper to taste; run through food mill with coarse blade

Toss cooked pasta with sauce and Dad's homemade meatballs

Eat as is, or with fresh basil pesto, depending on your birthday preference

Open presents and show your best goofy face!

The Good

• With all of the tomatoes we had this week - as well as the best avocados that we've ever eaten - we ended up having a wonderful Mexican feast of fajitas, with fresh guacamole, pico de gallo, charred tomato salsa, and (for the grown-ups only) orange margaritas!

• Did I mention that our oven broke last week?  Just added to the fun.  I had to do the Kale, onion and potato frittata recipe on the stove top, which didn't fully work but tasted alright.  We also weren't able to follow the correct instructions for the the roasted Green Bean, potato and Radicchio salad.  Instead, my husband roasted the beans and potatoes on the grill, which tremendously added to the flavors!  Though I didn't get a photo, it was a delicious and quite beautiful salad.