Tomato Basil Pasta

This past Shabbat, Levi and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary!! It seems like just yesterday that we celebrated our marriage together with about 700+ of our friends and family. (I guess you could say it was a big wedding - so big that we found ourselves on the cover of the Daily Break in the Sunday paper - and if you were there, you know it was BIG time fun too!) Marriage is no simple feat - for two people to create a life together and stick with each other  certainly requires plenty of love, hard work and dedication. I am so grateful to have found such an incredible man to share my life with. Levi has been by my side every step of the way - cheering me on in the great moments and helping me through the challenges we have faced. It is my wish that we should continue to have many, many more happy years together!

Last night we had family and friends over for a little dinner to celebrate :) Decided to keep things simple in the kitchen - but turned out a delicious meal if I may say so myself. We had honey-mustard grilled chicken breast (thanks for grilling in the heat Levi!), tomato-basil rotini and a garden salad. We finished it all of with delicious crepes filled with fresh strawberries and whipped cream.

Today I'll share the recipe for the pasta - and the chicken recipe will follow in a few days:)

Tomato Basil Pasta

1 lb cooked rotini

Olive oil

6 big leaves fresh basil, chopped

1 can diced tomatoes, drained well

Granulated garlic

Black pepper

Salt

Heat a little olive oil in a pot on a medium-high. Coat pasta in olive oil and then add chopped basil and tomatoes. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and garlic (usually I use fresh garlic, but alas I didn't have any yesterday.) Stir all ingredients periodically for about 8 minutes. Remove from pot and enjoy!

Grilled Pineapple

Finally! 5 out of 6 kids on the back of the couch! Took forever to get this shot - each time one kid would balance themselves..another would fall back into the pillows :) They LOVED this activity!

Made this sandcastle with the girls!

BEACH!

Wright Brothers place in Kitty Hawk

The sand was blowing all over the place when we went down to check out the monster waves!

LOVED watching the huge waves crashing against the sand

Sunset from the back porch 

Sunset almost over

A few  months back, Levi and I spent two days in Nags Head. On the way home I was busy on my iPad, checking out what it would entail to rent a home in Nags Head for a week in the summer. Levi shook his head at me and let me know that it was a pipe dream. I love dreaming and wishing - and I absolutely hate putting a great idea to rest. So I continued to search through tons and tons of rental homes until I finally found the perfect house for my family and our friends to call home for a week.

Having always been the "need to do things on vacation type" I was curious to see how I would enjoy spending a lazy week on the beach. The minute we arrived in our big, green house I knew I was going to love every minute of our vacation.

Mushky LOVED riding the waves

There were 11 of us in a great big house just across the street from the beach and we all had a BLAST! I loved hitting the sand for a barefoot runs in the morning and biking down the beach road with my hubby too. I loved seeing the thrill in my kids eyes as we spent hour upon hour playing in the sand and ocean. I loved seeing dolphins frolicking in the beautiful water. I loved spending quiet time looking at the waves and reading on our porch. I loved watching the kids enjoy playing with each other and doing crafts in the evenings and I loved our little spontaneous outings to a lighthouse, playground on the calm waters of the sound and a huge sand dune - and of course we all loved eating!

Keeping Kosher meant bringing along all of our food! Our van looked like we had packed everything but the kitchen sink - but believe me we had exactly the right tools to make sure we had yummy eats for breakfast, lunch and dinner for almost 6 days. We grilled and we made fries, popped popcorn and roasted plenty of veggies too!

My absolute favorite was the grilled pineapple! If you have never tried grilling pineapple - it is about time you do. Sometimes I season it it with a little lemon juice and salt and pepper - but this time we simply through the pineapple slices on the cute little charcoal grill and waited for it to get nice and soft. Grilling pineapple brings out an incredible sweetness and turns it into a fabulous treat!

Soooo....this recipe is super short....slice up a pineapple, throw it on the grill - enjoy!

Recipes to be posted soon:)

I can hardly believe I have let 6 weeks go by without posting any recipes. I assure that my family has indeed been eating during this time - but it has been a very busy 6 weeks and so I pretty much stuck to preparing the absolute easiest foods, the ones I can do in my sleep:) -which I have posted the majority of in the past. We just got back from an awesome vacation in Nags Head and I most certainly have some fun things to post from our eating experiences on our trip. Stay tuned, as I have a couple of posts planned for this week!