Dinner on the Kitchen Floor

The meal I made tonight was: Zucchini and Squash Ribbon Pasta.

(I would give you a picture of my meal, but the one on www.shape.com does the meal way more justice. A food photographer I am not.)

I found the link to this recipe on Pinterest. I have to admit when I saw the picture of the recipe I actually thought it was pasta and that's why I pinned it. It wasn't until I was making my grocery list that I discovered it was a vegetarian meal and actually zucchini and squash cut to look like pasta. The picture looked so good and the recipe sounded so refreshing that I decided to go for it. As an added bonus, the recipe called for pesto and I had just enough left over from my last weeks cooking adventure. Perfect!

So, I set out to make dinner. I placed Eli's little swing in the kitchen, hoping the change of scenery would keep him occupied long enough for me to cook. I needed to chop, julienne, peel, and saute things all before Eli needed to snuggle. I was thankfully amazed. He sat in his swing just watching me cook. His little coos and smiles were very encouraging. When I was done cooking I plopped right down on the floor in front of his swing to try my meal. Success! It was pretty delicious, if I do say so myself. The zucchini and squash twirled around my fork just like pasta, and the crunchy textures of all the ingredients made for a hearty little meal.

Now, I'm not a vegetarian. And while this was delicious, I would have loved a little petite steak to go with it. In the future, especially when I make this for Brandon, a little protein will be necessary. But overall, this was a perfect meal for one. Healthy and bright.

Here are a couple things I'll need to remember for next time:

1) Peel the zucchini and squash from the outside like a potato. Don't try to half it before peeling because the seeds on the inside cause the ribbons to fall apart.

2) Place the corn cob in a bowl when scraping the corn off to avoid rogue kernels. They flew all over the place when I tried it using a plate.

Super excited about this success and feeling pretty brave in the kitchen this week!