Happy September!
It hurts so good, doesn’t it?
Just wanted to quickly let you know I added the banana in the Love Muffin recipe! Sorry for the delay. I meant to fix it yesterday and then I forgot in all the excitement.
Let me continue with yesterday’s anniversary recap from way back in August… ;)
The traditional gift for a 2nd year wedding anniversary is cotton.
Sadly, not jewelry. Or copious amounts of chocolate smothered in White Chocolate Peanut Butter.
Sooooo….I got Eric a couple new cotton shirts…
Amazingly, they fit AND he liked them. I usually get one or the other so I consider this a success. Eric has gone from an Extra-large to a large and now he is a medium. One of these days he is going to turn sideways and I won’t see him anymore!
For my cotton gifts, Eric gave me some fall-coloured tea towels:
They will go smashingly with all the pumpkin and cinnamon. ;)
And a gorgeous retro apron from Anthropologie.
A great gift for a cooking + baking obsessed gal like myself.
Then it was time for our anniversary book.
You might recall, I gave Eric this book for our 1st wedding anniversary (the ‘paper’ year).
Paper, now cotton. Well, at least we are making progress…?!
For the explanation and detail shots, see this post.
Each year, we put together 1 large page that documents the entire year in review.
and this year Eric made one.
I laughed so hard when I saw the Vitamix thing.
If you are not watching Lie To Me yet, you must from the very first episode. You will thank me later, I promise!
Eric did an awesome job! Next year it will be my turn again. :) I think it will be really fun to look back in 10, 15, 20 years and re-read everything and see how much things have changed. Or…we might just feel old and pour ourselves another glass of wine and laugh about how immature and naive we used to be.
Only time will tell!
After exchanging gifts, it was time to fill our bellies with delicious food.
Eric suggested that we cook together instead of going out. We rarely get a chance to cook together because Eric gets home from work so late, but last night it worked out just perfectly.
Cooking together is a great excuse to pour some wine and get all crazy.
This tea light set is one of my favourite purchases from Costco.
Chewy, nutty, thick brown rice. Mmm.
Homemade sauce with fresh herbs.
Oh this smells good, I say. Want to try some?
I can’t get over how fast cooking is when you have two people- and four hands- and 20 fingers! We prepared this meal from scratch start to finish in about 45 minutes (and that was mostly waiting for the sauce to cook while we put away dishes).
Another great thing about aprons? They double as a bib when you eat tomato sauce dishes. ;)
Homemade Chunky Tomato Sauce over Salt-Kissed & Buttery Brown Rice
Ingredients:
Homemade Pasta Sauce:
- 2 large cans of organic diced tomatoes (796 ml can x 2)
- 1/4 cup tomato paste
- 1 cup butter beans (or other bean), processed until chunky paste forms
- 2 patty pan squash, chopped
- 1 large sweet onion, chopped
- 1 green pepper, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- Fresh herbs: Thyme, parsley, oregano, minced (about 1-2 tbsp of each)
- 1 tsp sea salt, to taste (more if necessary)
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- Sprinkle or three of Herbamare, to taste
Directions: In a large pot place all prepped ingredients. Stir well and cover. Cook over medium heat for 45 minutes.
Salt-Kissed & Buttery Brown Rice
- 2 cups brown rice
- 5 cups (approx I didn’t measure) water
- 1 vegetable brouillon cube
- 2 tbsp Earth Balance
Directions: In a medium sized pot add water and bring to a boil. Once boiled, add bouillon cube, remove from heat, and dissolve. Now add 2 cups of rice. Cook over medium heat for about 30 minutes until tender, being sure to watch it carefully. Add more water if it becomes dry. When it is cooked spoon the Earth Balance on top and stir well. It will taste DELICIOUS!
We fell in love with this dish. The brown rice was great too! Buttery, salty, and tons of flavour.
We split a love muffin for dessert. Lovin’ the love muffins.
It was a fun night, but sadly it was over too soon. That is always the way when celebrations fall on a weeknight. Luckily the long weekend approaches!
As a big scrapbooking nerd, I LOVE your anniversary book! (And Eric’s Vitamix page is great!) It looks like you two had a beautiful day. Congratulations again! :)
I love this Anniversary Book tradition! What a wonderful way to capture your years together. And such a sweet homemade Anniversary dinner :)
That’s cute you celebrated your cotton year. Our second anniversary was in May and my mom bought us bathroom towels. I was like, “Um, thanks?” until she explained it. =D
Congrats again on your anniversary Angela and Eric!
I love your new apron and those tea towels are beautiful. You two are so adorable, I wish you both the best!
Eric has great taste in cotton! I want your apron :p
And that anniversary book is SUCH a good idea – that’ll be awesome to look back on in decades :)
Oh Goodness! I LOVE that anniversary book idea! Do you think if I make love muffins for my boyfriend he will propose to me in a week?! ;-)
I too LOVE the anniversary book idea. Congrats on your 2nd!! I am about 5 weeks out from my 1st and very excited. I saw somewhere that clocks were for a first anniversary, so I think I better look deeper if it’s actually paper.
I think there is usually a traditional item and a modern one for each year…and sometimes more than one too! :)
Angela is right, there is a traditional and modern. Clocks and Paper for our first. I’m not sure what the modern gift for 2nd is…I’ll have to look that up.
I think it might be china!
http://honeymoons.about.com/cs/shopping/a/anniversarygift.htm
I love their idea of a beach towel + vacation…lol…why didnt we think of that!? ;)
Excellent. I found a really cool clock that I can personalize with our last name and
Est. 2009 on the face. Perhaps for the paper I can write him a poem to go along with it. Thanks guys!
That anniversary book is so adorable, and such a great idea. I am glad you guys had an awesome anniversary dinner! :)
I love the idea of the anniversary book, what a beautiful way to remember and celebrate each year. I definitely agree that there is something wonderfully romantic about cooking together, especcially when wine is involved :) oh and I totally loved and voted for the portabella recipe,relish!
thank you!
What a cute idea! I love hearing about unique ways couples celebrate and commemorate milestones.
Happy Anniversary! Is it ok if I steal the anniversary book idea? What a fabulous thing to do! Your children will appreciate that so much one day. I’ve already told my husband we need to make one. We’ll be celebrating our third in May so we can make the first two pages retroactively :)
Of course! I hope you have fun with it. We had a blast reading over last year’s and it has only been a year! It is amazing the things you forget…
An anthropologie apron and tea towels? He’s a good shopper!!
cooking together is so much fun, it’s one of our favorite things to do together – the dinner you guys made looks great!
I Love that apron! I need a cute one and my birthday is coming up soon, maybe that’s a good idea for my birthday present from the boyfriend! :)
You should buy him a funny apron now for when you guys are making more dinners together!
Ah I just love that book! How cute!
I love that you guys decided to cook together rather than go out to eat! Cooking with someone else can be so much fun, and you enjoy the food that much more! Your anniversary book is so cute! I agree it will be a lot of fun for you guys to look back and see what things have changed. That rice looks so good! I’m always looking for veggie dishes so this will definitely be on my list of things to make!
I love the book idea. I always love to look at my grandparents old details and I think someday your family will enjoy going through all of your years!
That apron is awesome!!! I love retro aprons like that!
Haha…for our first anniversary, I told my husband that I wanted EVERY anniversary to be a jewelry anniversary…and he complied :-)
I’m loving the anniversary book idea! I also love that you switch back and forth each year. Such a great way to look back and remember (especially for people like me, with awful memory). I did a similar type scrapbook (which I have yet to finish, unfortunately) for my study abroad experience in college. I pretty much collected pamphlets, receipts, tickets, you name it throughout the whole semester and brought it all back!
Thanks for providing another inspirational idea for me!
you guys are so cute! and way to go Eric on that apron and the book!
AHH! Now I really want to make an anniversary book! Such a cool idea!!
I love your anniversary book!!! What an excellent idea!! And of course your pasta sauce looks amazing!!!