Date Night Dinner

A lot of our nights are spent "in" lately, since this baby got here, so I thought I'd share our favorite date night dinner with you - an Italian antipasta platter!  If you've never had an antipasta platter, it's an Italian tradition and it means "before the meal."  It is usually a bunch of different meats, cheeses and pickled veggies.

I am Italian, my grandparents both were full Italian, and it's funny because Ian and I still hold to some Italian traditions with Lemon even though I don't think we mean to.  Antipasta platters are our favorite to make/eat and we eat spaghetti every Sunday, just like my family did when I was little (and still does).  I hope to continue this tradition, as Lemon gets older, because she does have a little Italian in her after all.  Spaghetti is one of her favorite foods, so far, and it always was one of mine too (with gluten free noodles, of course).

Ian and I usually can't stay up very late, seriously 10pm gets here and we are both falling asleep on the couch, so on "date nights" we try to make an effort to stay up later and spend some time together, just the two of us.  We make the baby dinner, put her to bed (around 7:30-8pm) and then eat dinner later while watching a movie.  We had a super busy week last week and I knew that I was going to be gone one night (to celebrate a friend's birthday) and the next night Ian was going to a baseball game with his friends, so we planned a night to stay in together and snuggle up on the couch.

We took a trip to Fresh & Easy because it's so close and so easy!  They have different gourmet cheeses, a package of different kinds of Italian meats, lots of little cocktail olives/pickles, gluten free options and alcohol (always a plus!).  Plus, I wanted to check out their options for baby snacks/cups since I was kind of sick of the ones we had.

This girl has been talking non stop lately.

Hybrid parking - the BEST!  And if we didn't have a hybrid, they have family parking up front too!

Lemon loves riding in the cart and people watching.  This woman also works at our local Fresh & Easy who absolutely loves Lemon and remembers her every time we go in!

So many cheeses!  This time we got a Dill Havarti, Gorgonzola and Brie, my fav.

I spent about $100, I got a bit carried away with our date night (see that ice cream in there?!).

Some of our purchases - those almonds and chocolate chips are what make our platters so delish!  I found a new kind of gluten free cracker, which I liked, and also some Udi's gluten free tortillas (not pictured) and they actually don't break when you use them!  I have been waiting for a good gluten free tortilla forever, I'm so happy I found them!

YUM!

And for Lemon, I got these Evenflo sippy cups - one with a flexible top and one with a squishy straw.  They are awesome!  The sippy one doesn't leak like all of our other cups and the one with the straw is the first cup like this that she's ever been able to drink out of!  Yay Lemon!

We got the Big Kahuna Sweet White Sangria and it was delicious (and only $6 for a big bottle)!

Fast asleep while we watch Cloud Atlas!

Fresh & Easy made our date night dinner F&Easy!  If you'd like to make your own antipasta platter and have a date night in like us, click here for a coupon to use on your next Fresh & Easy shopping trip.  Enjoy!