Awash in Vegetables

As much as I look forward to going to the farm, I’m almost afraid to go these days. We have little besides vegetables in our refrigerator. Yet they are packed in and allowing for little else to find room in there. I have tomatoes lining the counter and filling bags on the floor. I can’t make things fast enough to keep up with the vegetable supply and I’m starting to run out of room in the freezer.

Perhaps I should give some vegetables away, and I do give some to our babysitter. But these are amazing vegetables – organic and pulled right from the earth just a few miles from our home. I know this bounty is temporary and I know my son’s appetite, voracious now, will only increase. I’d like to make baby food with whatever I can’t use right away, made in large quantities and frozen.

In the meantime though, I feel like I’m racing to make something out of them before they go old. And in the effort to try to turn them into baby food (which is generally simpler and faster than adult fare), I’m not cooking much for myself.

Except, of course, for the gazpacho. I tried making gazpacho for the first time. Thought about it for days, prepared a few more days, and finally got around to it. I pureed a portion for River and froze it and put the rest in the fridge for myself. The instructions said the flavors should blend for at least 24 hours. The first day I thought it was OK. The second day, I had trouble eating it. I realized the flavor of onion was too strong, I’d put in too much.

When the babysitter pulled out a frozen portion of gazpacho for River I told her that if he didn’t like it, not to force it. I didn’t expect him to like it, since I couldn’t even manage to enjoy it.

He did eat it though. And when she passed him to me after the meal for some breastfeeding, he emitted a strong scent of onion and garlic. That’s a new smell to associate with a baby!