Tomatoes and Birthdays

My friend was away on vacation this week and generously allowed me to pick up her CSA box for her. There were tons of tomatoes and since we aren't huge raw tomato lovers, I quickly wanted to use them up before they went bad. I made a quick and easy salsa without a recipe, and it turned out fantastic. I cut up tomatoes, red onion, and added cilantro, lime juice, chili powder, sea salt and chiles. Then I put it all in the food processor and lightly processed it so that it was still a bit chunky. I could drink this stuff up, so super delicious! I also made some tomato sauce and for the first time I actually peeled the tomatoes (you know where you boil them for a minute and the skins come right off!!!)!. I then cooked it down with onions, zucchini (also from the CSA), garlic, and added ground almonds in the end. The sauce was a really pretty color because of the heirloom tomatoes, it tasted amazing, I know it was because it was so fresh, probably picked that morning. I have to admit I'm reading Kinsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle right now, and it kind of inspired me to cook more from scratch as I had gotten pretty lazy with the move, etc. While she kind of makes some lame arguments against veganism that can be hard to get past, I do enjoy her work and take from it the parts I like. I think she is an amazing author and person. Anyway, so where was I? So on to the birthday...!

We celebrated today with family and it was a relaxing day by the pool. My brother brought Indian food from Punjabi Tandoor which was fantastic as always. He kind of knows the family that runs the restaurant so they seem to understand and respect his requests for "no dairy" and obviously no meat. My SIL made the cake and it was beautiful. My camera is still MIA but she took some pictures that maybe I can share later on. It was chocolate mint, my favorite! We served it with So Delicious Coconut milk based ice cream, what a treat. My belly was so full after all of this. So the day was pleasant, everyone hung out by the pool and got to chat and it was a beautiful day here. I even got surprised by 2 of my cousins stopping by which was nice. My family lavished me with thoughtful gifts, from roses to stainless stir fry pans, hula hoops to hemp shoes. Ah, such a lucky person. My kids gifted me with no major meltdowns, and an all around pleasant day. Rowan took a nice long nap too.