I'm in Heaven!!

The main reason I can't ever seem to keep my blogs up as much as I would like these days is that I am a proud mother of two little, little boys!!

I have a 2 year-old and a 4 month-old.

And, since my husband and I run our own business, though I am technically at home with the little ones, there is still quite a bit to be done by me for work. Yet, I wouldn't have it any other way. I love that I get to spend so much time with them, and I LOVE not having to commute -- I live in Greater LA and used to commute - yuck!!

For the New Year, I'm hoping to blog more frequently. I love cooking and am committed to not doing take out and frozen dinners regularly, despite the hectic life we live. I am also committed, despite a tight budget, to being a part of the local food movement, so I'm part of a CSA, Abundant Harvest Organics. I love it and would recommend it to anyone who lives within their service area in Central and Southern Cali - or see if there is a CSA near you!

So, my plan for the New Year is to post meal plans, recipe links and actual recipes (and maybe even some photos) about this cooking journey.

Today's post is called I'm in Heaven because, for a very brief moment, both boys were sleeping (I hear the baby waking right now) and I had prepped a simple and amazing salad and was indulging in quiet, deliciousness.

It was a tomato cucumber salad with avocad0 (and the avocado was the most perfect and buttery avocado). It was so simple, but so magical. (Single serving size described below)

1/2 cucumber - chopped
less than 1/4 of a red onion - diced
a handful cherry tomatoes - halved or quartered
1 avocado - diced

I layered it in a bowl and drizzled with a little balsamic and olive oil and sprinkled some black pepper on.

Heaven!





(The photo was taken with my photobooth on my computer, so it doesn't do the salad justice).





Here's to hoping the baby puts himself back to sleep. It's sounding as if he might. If so, the question becomes: to cook or nap!!

Soup Week - Soup #2 - Taco Soup

This Taco Soup is really, really easy and really perfect for leftovers. It also takes very little dishes -- I make mine in my crockpot. It can be made vegetarian or with meat. I'll give you the run down on what I dumped in my crockpot this time, and give examples for swap outs. It's great for a busy week because you can literally dump and turn the crockpot on and it will be done. Plus, the soup can be used as a great baked potato topper as well.

So, my ingredients this time were:

1 cup (about) of ground turkey (leftover from tacos a few nights before)
1 can of red beans
1/2 cup of black bean soup (or you could use 1 can of black beans)
1 cup or can of white beans (or whatever other bean you like - chili beans, garbanzo beans, etc. I had some white beans leftover from another recipe)
1-1 1/2 cups of corn (I used frozen corn that I had shaved off the cob when corn was in season and cheap. You could also use 1 can of corn, if you wanted).
1-2 cans of diced tomatoes (or fresh tomatoes, 1-2 cups, depending on how tomato-ey you want it).
1 packet of taco seasoning

I just dump all of these items in the crockpot and a few hours later you really do have a great soup. Just add salt and pepper to taste.

Garnishing with this soup is key - it's a great way to use up the crumbs at the bottom of a tortilla chip bag and anything you would top a taco with, is great on this soup, notably shredded cheese, avocado, sour cream, diced red onions, etc.

I also topped a baked potato with the soup one night, which was also quite good.

For swap outs, I recommend any ground beef you have or leftover fajita meat or even shredded chicken. It's also a great vegetarian soup in which I just up the amount of canned beans (usually putting two of kidney and two of black because those are my favorites. My mom usually adds frozen green beans as well.) You might also need to add more taco seasoning, if you make an extra full pot of it.

Enjoy!!

Cherry Tomato Salsa

At the end of summer (through September, if you live in California or some other parts of the country as well), cherry tomatoes are overflowing at farmer's markets and vegetable stands.

At our Swapmeet this past Sunday, I got a huge bowlful for practically nothing (for $5 I got at least 2 pounds of grapes, 2 pounds of cherry tomatoes, 5 onions and probably 16 carrots) - what a deal.

Of course, since I love tomatoes, I ate some of the cherry tomatoes by the handful, but I also made a sweet (and delicious) cherry tomato salsa.

Ingredients:

2 cups cherry tomatoes, sliced in half or quarters (depending on the size)
1/2 of a red onion (diced)
1/2 of a green bell pepper (diced)
1 small jalapeno pepper (diced)
black pepper and salt to taste

I threw all of the ingredients in my food processor (a blender would work well) and that was that. I typically add cilantro to my salsa, but didn't have any. With a sweeter salsa, though, I found that I didn't miss the cilantro nor the fact that I used such a small jalapeno (it was super, duper tiny - wish I had a photo to prove it.)

Simple, quick and delicious. The only negative to the salsa was that it caused me to eat way too many chips and that I devoured it before I got a good picture.

Coming soon -- roasted carrot soup made with the abundance of carrots I got. I promise to take pictures, since I know that is one of the best parts of food blogs.