Late Summer Bounty

Whew! Whew, I say! It was an exhausting Sunday of chores and getting ready for the coming week. A lot of it involved food preparation--two entrees for the week (to be reheated), food for tonight's dinner, and a pie, plus little veggie packets for our lunches, plus washing and spinning all the lettuce for the week. It's worth it though, because the week will go much more smoothly now. I think it's mainly exhausting with the two little ones underfoot, and needing me, and interrupting, and not being happy in the Ergo, and I'm looking forward to things getting just a little bit easier as they get just a little bit older and can manage just a little bit more independently. Yet, they are so sweet right now . . . Just live in the moment, I remind myself. I have babies. I'm lucky.

Evidently I was inspired by my own post because we ate a lot of the food from our yard this weekend, starting with juicing some of our Valencia oranges that have just been hanging ignored on the tree. Dieter loves playing with the juicer, just the mechanics of it, so I really feel bad that we don't actually make juice more often--I mean, the fruit is free and everything.
He actually does pretty well all on his own, but he needs a little help at the end of the squeeze to get the main part of the juice out. "Wow!" he said when I helped him and all the juice ran out.
The juice was really good too--another lesson in using what we have.
In other yard food happenings, I made the apple pie I'd planned for, with apples Ken brought back from his parents . . .
and this basil-pea pasta dish with fresh basil from the yard (and our plums too as a side). The pasta dish was good, but in retrospect we think we like just a regular pesto better.

Time to press on and get everybody's lunches ready for the morning. Have a great week.