Dear Mexico...I miss you! Love, Beth

Hola! I don't know why today was a rough day but it was. I was down in the dumps all day for no real reason so when I came home tonight Alex and I decided to open one of our prize bottles of REALLY GOOD tequila and make some tacos de camaron. I just bought a new cast iron tortilla press since coming back from Mexico and have been determined to make some fresh, homemade tortillas....

 WOW! WOW! WOW! And YUUUUUUM! Does it take a few extra minutes? sure...is it worth it? abso-freakin-lutely!!!!! 

Get some Maseca (I would have preferred a small mexican grinding this fresh for me but I settled for a tall, cute, gringo pouring some Maseca from a box), some salt and water. 

Mix it to a dough, it almost feels like play dough and is VERY forgiving....make a ball too big or too small, try again. VERY FORGIVING much more so than the IRS (bitter table for one! It's another long long story). Aim for a golf ball size dough ball. Use a zip lock bag that you cut in half, put the ball slightly off center on the CAST IRON PRESS (which is key, good weigh) and there you have it!!!

I don't have a gas stove or a comal (flat cast iron pan) but I do have a crap pan that we don't care how hot it gets or if it gets ruined so we used that.

The tortilla almost gives off a smell of "just about to burn" and you know it's time to flip it. Flip again and pop it into a warm oven wrapped in tin foil (keeps it warm and soft while you make more)

12 tortillas and about 5 minutes later....

FIESTA!!!!! 

You can't see it but underneath the homemade salsa and guacamole is some wild shrimp marinated in achiote paste with fresh squeezed orange juice and lime juice (DELISH). 

Marinade....

1/3 cup of fresh lime juice

2/3 cup of fresh orange juice

20 grams of Achiote paste (I smuggled mine in from Mexico, looked like a brick of red cocaine!)

~ mix it all together and toss in the wild shrimp for like 20 minutes

I know everyone makes salsa and guacamole differently but here's what we learned in Mexico....

Salsa....

1/4 of an onion

a hot pepper of your choice (I used 2 but whatever you like)

4 or 5 roma tomatoes

1 garlic clove

Toast everything in a DRY PAN until it is charred all over... Take the white part out of the tomatoes, toss everything in a blender or food processor.... salt to taste (DONE)

Guacamole....

2 TBSP of onion (put this in a small container and fill it with fresh lime juice for about 15 mins**)

2 TBSP of chopped tomato

Cilantro

2 Avocados

Hot pepper if you want

Salt to taste

Put everything in a bowl minus the onion in lime juice. Take the onion out of the lime juice, reserving a little bit, and toss it in the bowl with everything else. Mix it up, taste it and add more lime juice if you want. 

**The reason you soak the onion in the lime juice is it actually will help slow down the oxidation process of the avocado more. 

Some of this AMAZING stuff over ice with just a tiny squeeze of lime, if you can find a bottle buy one...worth the money for sure. If you go to mexico buy me another bottle and I'll send you a check! :)

Like a great vacation I am sad this dinner is over. BUT so excited for lunch tomorrow!!!! Moral of the story....make your own tortillas! SO WORTH IT!!!!

Adventures in Baby Sitting (just like the movie, minus the cool 80's soundtrack)

Top of the Muffin to you all and Happy Sunday/ St. Patrick's Day! Oh what a lazy weekend this has been for all the right reasons though (see below) I am sick with a bad bad bad cold and I knew that I had to take it easy all weekend to get over this crap. I have been taking dayquil and everything else under the sun PLUS cuddling with our friend's french bull dog all weekend!!!! We are puppy sitting!

I would like you all to meet.....Pretzel.....he loves long walks, sneaky snacks (when we are not looking) and lots and lots of cuddling on the couch.

This little tater tot wants to do NOTHING but cuddle. I have to say besides a few walks here and there we have all done nothing but lay around, me.... high as a kite on cold meds....this little puddle of love.....comforting me all the way. 

Now if I wasn't so under the weather I would posting pictures of a fashion montage with this love muffin but because I feel like death walking with ZERO energy the fashion show has been postponed until next time!

But instead here are a few pictures of how much he enjoys trying to eat waffles.... 

So we bought a Vitamix! (Below is a total Food Geek Moment)

For all of your who don't know or care about what a Vitamix is or is all about, well my friends it's the Lexus of the blender world. This puppy chops, makes smoothies, ice cream, sorbet, hot soup (YES.... HOT....FREAKING... SOUP) if it would do my job for me and I could legally marry it I would at this point!

No seriously it is awesome. It was worth every REALLY expensive little penny we paid all $405 of them. (Which included tax and shipping....but it should have included a small person to make us smoothies at our beckon call! It didn't) There are many to choose from but we settled on the refurbished one that is from their website offers and 100% certified by the company. It has a 5 year warranty and came in a few different colors. You select the "class of blender" verse the model you want. We settled on the 6300/5 pro which was a little more money than the other ones but has a few easy preprogrammed setting for the hot soup, ice cream and smoothies plus it got REALLY good reviews.

When I opened it a little bit ago it looks brand spanking new! Not a scratch on it and I still can't believe it was refurbished. It also came with a really nice recipe guide to help you make up your mind on what to toss in it first. I bought some blood oranges at the store the other day so I thought, "let's make some blood orange sorbet after dinner" Soooooo we did just that. I know what you are thinking...."Hell I can do that in my $25 blender that I bought at Walmart where they treat their employee's like small Chinese Children in Nike Factories!" (Sorry I am not a huge fan of Walmart, read Nickeled and Dimmed in America)

Maybe you could but to be honest this thing ground the ice so fine it was the perfect sorbet texture. (Yep I just said) So now I am on the hunt for the PERFECT breakfast smoothie!!! Wish me luck!!!!

The only downfall I have seen so far, well more like heard, is it's SO FREAKING LOUD. How loud you ask? Well I had to YELL over said amazing smoothie hot soup machine to say to Alex, "WOW OUR NEIGHBORS ARE REALLY GOING TO HATE US TOMORROW MORNING!" And than the sorbet was done and the motor shut off right as I was screaming the last part of the sentence.

SO EXCITED!!!!!!!

P.s. I have to share this....I feel this way constantly!

We just made homemade salsa and I can't feel my tongue

Coming back from Mexico you would think I would have an iron stomach by now. We ate nothing but spicy food morning, noon and night for a week straight. (In our house sriracha is a frequent flyer in almost everything we eat).  By the end of the week I stopped sweating while eating the "special salsa" that no gringo would eat and they keep in the back of the taco shop but tonight this homemade stuff we made IS KICKING MY ASS and my tongue for that matter which now no longer exists.

The habanero we put in this puppy was so hot (yes some are hotter than others and this little guy was SPPPPIIIIIICCCCCCYYYYYY) that when Alex buzzed it in the food processor he started coughing right away, before he took the lid off!!! (I thought to myself, SHIT). Alex is CONVINCED that by tomorrow this death sauce, as it is now know in our household, will be "mellowed out" I believe were his exact words. I on the other hand have tums, the pink stuff and some milk all ready for white trash turkey taco night tomorrow (where said death sauce will be a guest of honor on the dinner plate) in case I need to bring in some back ups in fighting this spice holy war that will be going on in my mouth.

**side note I was just coughing so loudly from the mini spice attack that Alex said, "Bless You!" thinking I was sneezing. (If I EVER sneeze like I just coughed please hide me in a closet because I would scare anyone in sight!)

***side side note the death sauce is making Alex delusional and he is "singing" or as he put it "serenading me so I MUST PAY ATTENTION TO HIM" with the theme song to 'The West Wing'.

SAVE YOURSELVES!!!! It's already too late for me!

Part 2 of My Adventures in Almond Milk

We all know how my first attempt in almond milk went. To catch up anyone who didn't read about it or listen to me bitch about it in person OR see me toss my coffee out the window on the freeway that morning...it went HORRIBLY WRONG!!!!

As sad as I am for dairy cows and the issues they go through (sorry dairy cows) I just wasn't into converting to homemade almond milk yet (the vitamix is in the mail so we can revisit this again once it gets here) BUT I am SOLD on using the "pulp" i.e. the crap in the blender you do not drink into crackers. I wish you could smell our kitchen right now. Picture warm banana, peanut buttery, vanilla, almondy goodness!!!!

I have never made a cracker before today. I never thought I would ever make crackers for that matter but I did and I am thankful I did. A little banana, a little maple syrup and A LOTA peanut butter.....HELLO! I figured it out that it's about 15 calories per cracker (I only got about 80 crackers out of the batch) but once you REOPEN the jar of Teddy Peanut Butter to snack with said crackers....I assume the calories go WAY UP. I am guessing they will last in the house for about 3 days tops before they starting getting stale but to be honest I doubt they will even last that long.

If you make almond milk, make these crackers....even if you don't want to drink the almond milk...toss it and still make these crackers. :)

1 cup of almond "pulp" i.e. dried crap in the blender you do not drink in the milk
1/2 cup of flax seed meal
2 TBSP good maple syrup
6 TBSP of peanut butter
1/2 cup of mashed banana
1/2 tsp of cinnamon
1 tsp of vanilla
dash of salt

Mix it all together, spread it really thin about 1/6th of an inch on a cookie sheet with a silpat or parchment paper.

Slice into 1 x 1 inch squares, baked at 300 degrees for 30 mins, flip them all CAREFULLY (learned the hard way, please read broke too many too count).

Baked for another 15 mins and see how brown they are, try them if you like the taste take them out and put them on a cooling rack. If you can wait to eat them great, if not then eat away!

Hello Sunday Snack Time!!!!!

Dear San Diego....I miss you.....

Days like Friday make me REALLY miss Southern California....even with a vacation to some where warm I still can not take ANY MORE SNOW or long commutes in this crap!

 At least I still look pretty tan... So I do have that going for me! (I am CLINGING to any ounce of tan left on my skin with a little bit of help from my friend, self tanner. Alex called me out on it again yesterday. He was like, "Why do you look SO TAN?" And by tan he meant Oompla Lompa Orange. I guess I over did JUST a touch). I was doing intervals on the treadmill yesterday morning and I thought to myself...I want this weekend to feel more like a relaxing vacation verse just a weekend. But how?

Weekends are never long enough. They are always filled with things I have to get done that I couldn't get done during the week. I do get to do some cooking which, crazy as it is, I find somewhat relaxing but still even with laying on the couch and possibly taking a nap it is still not NEARLY as relaxing as a vacation. Why?

My vacations aren't the "laying by the pool all day or beach all day". I tend to have some pretty action packed schedules even on vacations but for some reason they tend to be more relaxing than Saturday and Sunday. Could it be that the vacations are longer than 2 days? Probably.... Could it be that I am able to unplug completely and not check work email when it dings on my iPhone? Sure

But either way there HAS to be a way to make the most of out my weekends and still make them feel more relaxing. So this weekend and going forward I am going to try my best to make my weekends feel more like a vacation or at least this is my attempt.

How did I do yesterday you ask?

Not half bad....ran some errands, cleaned a bit, threw some flowers in a vase (if this whole event planning thing doesn't work out I totally have a future in being a florist.... no not really at all)

 relaxed on the couch, watched some tv and then hung out with this guy (one of my oldest and dearest friends) and some other fabulous people for dinner at Angela's in East Boston. (We can not get enough Mexican food in our lives!)

So my question to all of you in the world of blogs, how do you relax over the weekend???

Cadbury Mini Eggs And Mexico.....

Oh how you will be the death of me! It is that time of year again. The time of year where I try my hardest to not buy bag after bag of the oh so very yummy mini eggs. It's like Pringles, "once you pop you can't stop" and by can't stop I mean until the stores run out!!! The only saving grace is that these delicious little bites are only available for a few select months of the year but man oh man are they good. I opened my first bag on Sunday...already half way through and the mini egg anxiety has begun to set in...I already said to Alex, "oh the next time we go to the store remind me to get some mini eggs".

Ok enough about that...so as you all know we went to Mexico last week. It was amazing!!! The whole week was spent with morning walks on the beach for a few miles (above the log I wanted to make into a coffee table....that wouldn't fit back on the plane), mid morning laps in the pool, afternoon strolls through town and A LOT of eating and drinking with some our favorite loved ones. I am tan, full and can barely button my pants but it was worth every calorie!!! Some of the highlights are as follows....

If you go to Playa Del Carmen you have to eat at El Fogon (corner of 30th and Constitution), hands down, one of the best meals we had there and the entire check, including drinks came to $30 bucks. It was a no frills, you sit in plastic chairs and don't EXACTLY know what you may be eating but every bite is so very tasty. Get whatever they are grilling on the grill with a huge platter of freshly made tortillas and wash it down with a super cold beer. Right when you sit down they bring you freshly pickled nopal (cactus), three fresh salsas, fresh radish and onion slices along with a cup of very tasty white bean soup. The day we went there it was so hot out I was a melting (not in a good way) so I ran into the bathroom (use this word VERY loosely) to freshen up a bit but found it was nothing but a closet with a toilet with no seat on it. BUT this was the only place in the open air shack that had AC so what did I do you ask? I took my shorts off and stood there for about 5 minutes flushing the toilet every once and awhile so people waiting wouldn't think I was WEIRD! That's what I did! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Thank you El Fogon for your AC filled "bathroom closet" and your very very yummy bites of tasty goodness.

Around the corner from this was a small market with a cafe. The cafe was the the most amazing fresh juices, highlight by far is a green juice with orange, pineapple, honey and some tasty green local leaves (I forget the name of them). We went to this market a few times because I liked it so much. They had TONS of fresh organic fruits, veggies and dried goods. I bought a kilo of this special paste (it was the only size it came in) that looked like a red BRICK OF COCAINE. The Achiote Paste was something we used in one of the dishes we made during our cooking class and the fabu instructor, Coty, said we should buy it here and bring it back. I did, $1.10 USD but had SO much anxiety bringing it across the border because it looked like a brick of cocaine wrapped up in a few plastic bags and a zip lock bag because it had such a strong smell. ha ha ha Custom's 100% left me a little love note in my bag. They thought they hit the jackpot but not so much my friends...not so much.

*FYI the brick made it back into the country and I am currently selling chunks of this amazing paste for the low low price of $20 an ounce. :) But with this paste you can make what I did...see below. (I bet I could buy this shit in East Boston but I was a little caught up in the moment, Oh Well!!)

(And YES I totally made that, well this was Alex's plate because mine didn't look this pretty but you get the idea)

And how could you not love this guy! He owned a chicharrons shop. We were just walking by and I fell so in love with him. I wanted to take him home with us but again Alex said no!! (what a wet blanket!) After I asked him if I could take this picture we started walking away and he came over with two huge pieces of chicharron and a big smile. Can't say no to fried pork skin!

And we must end this with my sombrero montage! OLE!