Old Town Scottsdale!

Last Saturday I was like a freaking kid on Christmas- I was so stupid excited it was like we were getting ready to bake Christmas cookies- but not we were on our way to the farmers market to get organic veggies to make soup for fall evenings where I don't want to cook!

My dear Friend Christi caught the pure excitement that Olive had as well!  This little girl is going to be just like her mommy- Christi and my coworkers are constantly telling me to "reel it in" because I tend to get wayyyy too excited about everything- this was no exception and I am glad to see it rub off on Olive!

In case it wasn't glaringly obvious- I am not a photographer.  I have a point in shoot camera that is always either dead or full of pics of olive so I take pics with my phone and post them, send them, show them off like "that mom" and on the daily I have to delete pics of olive doing something cute in order to take more!  SO with that said- if there is a really good picture on this blog- typically my dear friend Christi took it!  She will have a blog someday soon and you can totally look at her freaking amazing pictures!

Only a true friend would wake up with me at the crack of dawn to go to Old Town Scottsdale to buy some organic vegetables- and if you don't know me, I'm the friend that you typically need at least 2 cups of coffee in your tank if you're going anywhere with me in the morning... I'm like Will Ferril in Elf... it can be intense.... I'm working on it!  Christ and Olive were amazing troopers!

We got there around 830 (30 minutes after it opened) and it was CRAZY!!!!! People everywhere and everyone was trying to give us samples of everything!  It was only 830 so it was kind of hard to eat but those pickles and jalepeno jelly were kick ass! Olive even noshed on some crackers :) so dang cute!

This was the 1.2 seconds in which there weren't people bumping into us or giving us evil looks for having a big jogging stroller!  Now we know for the future that either baby stays home or I have to carry her in a sling or pouch!  IT GOT INTENSE- notice how the stroller took up half the aisle- I think that's the only reason we got a photo!

This farm that supplied the veggies had EVERYTHING imaginable!  Spices and sunflower seeds, herbs, and crazy veggies...but they had no pumpkins!  

They even had super cute puppies!!

But it was no biggie- Christi picked up some amazing champagne and pumpkins at the store while I fed Olive- so we had MIMOSAs while we made the soup!  David was a gem and took Olive to his parents house for the day so Christi and I could get our soup on!!!

So let's just say I was a little rusty- I haven't popped a champagne bottle since my Houston days and I was soooo afraid of breaking something or spilling our golden nectar on the floor- it took me seriously like 5 minutes to open that thing and of course Christi is just laughing her butt off!  

We totally rocked comfy pjs, drank, and talked about what scary movies we were going to watch while the soup was cooking!

So this was about 1/2 of the tupperware we went through to freeze and store all our goodies!

On the menu were 4 amazingly hearty and fall/family inspired meals that are great to freeze and reheat.  I used all organic veggies, beans,  rice, stocks, and meats (minus turkey bacon and beef for david).   I also am not a fan of salt so everything was low or no sodium!  We ended up only making 3 (even after we bought the pumpkins!) because I ran out of chicken stock!

We made:

Cock-a-leekie soup! A savory chicken, leek, prune soup that my dad created and I can never get mine to turn out as freaking amazing as his!

Butternut Squash Soup! A creamy soup made with squash, wild rice, bacon, and corn is one of my aunt's amazing recipes that I got to try in Minnesota last week!

and David's favorite chili!  A hearty beef chili with celery, beans, onions, and amazing spices!

The Pumpkin white bean chili was made later in the week!  It's a spicy chicken chili with white beans, green chile peppers, pumpkin cubes, and onions!

Christi did so amazing at catching the mouth watering goodness 

This is the Cock-a-leekie soup!

David's beef chili!

And one of my new favorites: the Butternut squash soup!

While smelling our amazing creations we watched the scary movie Mama- I don't recommend watching it alone, in the dark, or at all if you don't want to pee yourself.  It was truly one of the best girls days ever and was so productive- it made me feel so accomplished and I couldn't have done it without her help- there would've been dishes and swear words everywhere!

Poor David though- at least I made him chili because I drank his beer.

It was worth it....

Can't wait to do it again- and olive loves the Leekie soup broth!  mmmm soup!

Hopefully I can figure out how to make links for each of the Recipe's in the next week for anyone who wants them! Hope you will try them and love them as much as I do!

~*X*~