dinner: polenta and eggplant

This one's from my Aunt Karen ... who doesn't mess around in the kitchen. So good.

We ended up with leftovers of the eggplant/tomatoes and threw it on some spaghetti squash for lunch!

Heat 1 Tbs olive oil in large pan. Cook 1 onion and 5 cloves of garlic. Remove when softened.

Heat 6 Tbs of olive oil in same pan. Saute 1 large eggplant (cut into cubes) until golden. Add onion/garlic, 1 cup of canned crushed tomatoes, a few fresh tomatoes chopped, a few Tbs of fresh parsley, tsp of salt.

Simmer for 10 minutes. Add some black pepper.

Cook polenta (corse or medium corn meal) according to package directions. Whisk in a few Tbs of olive oil and stir in lots of parmesan (obviously).

Enjoy!

Thanks Aunt Karen!

neighborhood

Oh, hey!

BAGGU lunch bag

Kind of obsessed with these BAGGU lunch bags... so cute! I like that they can fit pretty much everything -- coffee mug, water bottle, lunch, and snacks. And best of all... machine washable.

living room: rug

The living room rug was our trickiest purchase yet. The gray in the couch and the multi-colored ottoman were really difficult to work with. We could have chosen a bold color but thought it would make this room appear even smaller or drown out the ottoman. So we finally found this guy. It makes the room feel that much more like home.

*The two frames above the couch are next ...

dad's manual film camera

Let me just start out by saying that I know nothing about photography. And I really don't want to get too deep into it. I like the idea of knowing a few basic rules, taking a bunch of shots for fun, and a few of them coming out looking okay.

There are a few blogs I read that use film cameras and I always love this look the best. There's little you can do to screw around with a film picture after taking it. Pictures that look real, without crazy added colors and effects, look the best to me.

So my Dad has this manual Nikon that he hasn't used in awhile and brought it over last weekend. Out of 24 pictures, 6 came out okay. Not bad for my first try? Thanks for letting me borrow your camera, Dad.

My beautiful sister Emily:

Gross avocado pits (soon-to-be-trees?) that Josh insists on incubating on our window sill. This is love.

Had to get at least one flower picture. It could be much better, I know.

Well that's that. Much more to come.

dinner: lentil fritter pitas with red cabbage slaw

It's easy to be a veg. Especially when you have lentil fritter pitas.

Recipe from Real Simple.

weekend

We spent Saturday running errands, cleaning, and organizing a few things around the house. Our life is so hectic during the week that it's kind of nice to play "catch up" on the weekend. At our own pace... with several extra cups of coffee.

Josh put up these hooks in the "black hole" (sorry for the bad photo -- so dark in there). We also found a rug for the living room ... finally! It was really hard to find something that worked with the gray in the couch and the patterned ottoman.

Finished the spice racks ...

A $3 IKEA organizer goes a long way in a junk drawer (yes, that's a rasta pencil. Thanks Grandma) ...

And a house filled with family on Sunday.