Sisterwives & The Summer of Salsa

Yes, it's true. 

We are like the Sister-wives of Roasted Corn Salsa. 

You see we just can't get enough.

I made it first, she made it better, we both declared love and then we declared that this will be:

The Summer of Salsa.

"Mel, it makes me so happy." 
"Lo, it makes me happier."
*sigh*
"I could sit here and stare at it all day long."
"Me too."
"Let's stare at it together."
"OK."

Sweet & Spicy

Coffee, tea, or me?

If you had to categorize me according to my hot beverage preference, I definitely fall into the coffee side of life.  Dad used to drink pots of it growing up, Mom wasn't a huge fan of it unless it was decaf,  and I think I started drinking somewhere in high-school maybe younger. Coffee was just always around when I grew up.

I always thought tea drinkers were she-she, but in a very complimentary way, like fine wine connoisseurs. 

When I went to Europe years ago in my early 20's I thought that it was certainly a cultural thing to be a she-she tea drinker.  I brought buckets of it back from England to gift to friends and family alike.

Tea in itself is certainly it's own culture.  It's an art form and a rich history. 

One that I am not well educated in but have learned to appreciate.

It spans the globe and can be found referenced during the BCs in China & Egypt, in aged scrolls, as commodity meant to be traded, and a means to start a revolution in the harbors of Boston circa 1773.

While I'm certainly not a historian by any means and definitely still not she-she, I have grown to love a certain tea over the last couple of years.

(the Classic packaging: source)

It's the Good Earth's signature tea and my absolute favorite!
It is sweet, oh but it is spicy! 
(and caffeine free too!)
I could drink cups and cups of this all day long and during the colder months that's just what I do.

Once upon a time, I used to always have a few bags of it in my purse and found myself handing them out to friends and strangers alike like the Bible tracks my grandmother used to keep in her deep pockets to leave in phone booths and at bus stops.

Directly from Good Earth's website:
An aromatic sweet cinnamon tea with hints of orange. Our full
flavored signature blend offers up a rich, spicy fragrance
followed by a sweet, warming, clean taste without added sugar.

As if a cup of this deliciousness wasn't incredible enough by itself, all the bag tags are inscribed with brilliant nuggets of information, little pick me ups from famous authors, writers, philanthropists, musicians, and now recently open to tea lovers and Sweet & Spicy fans everywhere!

I saw their Tea Tag quote contest on Facebook a few weeks ago and thought about what nugget of information I might have to contribute. 
I finally came up with one sometime in the sleep-deprived hours of  this late night and early dawn. 
My submission, as entered today is:

Music is Medicine.
Lyrics a poet.
Tempo a heartbeat.

I could very easily sit back and say that the same about my favorite Sweet & Spicy Tea:

It is a cup full of medicine (and comfort).
It's blend is a poetry.
Every sip makes my heart skip a little beat.

If you happen upon it sometime, give it a try!
(Of if you're lucky enough and you happen upon me in the Winter months with my pure in tow, I might even have a little bag of goodness to pass off to you.)

~ Lo

Roasted Corn & Jalepeno Salsa

Somewhere lost in the shuffle of this busy week, I got all the ingredients for this side dish/dip but never got around to making it.  I always see tubs of it in the grocery store, good, fresh ingredients, looks easy enough, so with some extra energy this afternoon (where'd that come from?) I decided to make this to bring to work with me tonight (lucky partners!)

First things first, I turned on the tunes:

{nothing happens easily or well in my house if there's a lack of music.  It's just a rule you see & John Mayer had things to tell me today!!!}

Then gathered my ingredients:

1 bag of frozen corn, thawed (or about 4 ears worth cut from the cob)

2 small jalapeños (or 0-1 if you're not a fan of the heat)

2 cups of cherry tomatoes

1 medium red onion

2 medium sized cucumbers

2 medium avocados

1 can of black beans, rinsed

3 limes

1 bunch of cilantro

Salt, to taste

Remember, I'm an eyeballer when it comes to cooking, I just cook as I go, so you may add and subtract from these quantities as you see fit, but this seemed to work out just fine for me.

It was hot today, not East Coast record-breaking hot, but hot enough that I was not going to be roasting corn on the BBQ or turning on the oven.

I grabbed a bag of thawed out fresh corn, coated a skillet with some olive oil spray and turned it on high.

This stuff cooks fast (see popcorn), watch it, don't get caught up in taking too many pictures for your blog or yelling for the 4-legged roomba to come and eat up what might spill if you're too overzealously tossing corn kernels instead of using a spatula. 

It took about 6 minutes on high with constant stirring to get a good char on the little kernels. 

 I took them off the heat and threw them in my new, beautiful bowl.



{Emma, AKA Food Roomba, she can hear food drop from the backyard, sniff it out on the floor,  and have it cleaned it up faster than you can say SharkVac!!}



I quickly chopped up the jalapeños, reminding myself to not touch my face or my eyes accidentally, took out the membranes and the seeds (where the spicy lives) and chopped them up to roast them in the same pan. 

Let's pause here for a second. 

It only took about 20 seconds of hot peppers on high putting out hot pepper fumes into my nostrils, before I started to cough and sneeze.  It was like I was watching Steel Magnolias!!  Oh the tears!!!

It was like I maced myself and got a steam facial all at once!

I hadn't even gotten to chopping the onion yet!!! 

I refused to be defeated by pepper fumes.

I carried on, chopping, wiping my eyes with a clean towel,

putting everything in the bowl in no particular order:

Rinsed the black beans

chopped tomatoes, onion, cucumbers, avocados

I threw in about 1.5 T of salt (give it a taste)

then squeezed the limes right over the top of the avocados before to giving it all a good toss together so they could all make friends with each other before having a good, cold siesta in the fridge for a couple of hours

Before I put it in the fridge {as is the requirement of any good cook} I grabbed a couple of chips and dug in…

this stuff is G-O-O-D!!

but lemme tell you that jalapeños after doing a little fire dance in the skillet, they're not playing around

This salsa packs a punch!! 

but it's good, fresh, easy to make, the ingredients are not expensive, and they are readily available. 

I give this two thumbs up for summer! 

I'm already imagining the variations on this with mango, strawberries, jicima, black eyed peas, kidney beans, the list goes on and then how to eat it - on salads with grilled shrimp or chicken, in tacos, on taco salad, layered in a bean dip…oh the possibilities!!!

Here's to Summertime and sidedishes!!

~ Lo

Lo's Pantry

Let's paint a little picture.

Single. Thirty-one. No kids.  One inside dog, one outside cat. 

Homeowner with a kitchen always in a contant state of remodel

owner of two refrigerators

girl with penchant for a variety of colorful ceramics and a a stauch disinterest in washing the dishes

Shiftworker. 

Fillipino, part Irish, my family just likes to eat...

I've never taken a cooking class, and I don't have to make meal plans on a weekly basis, but I take a certain pride in being able to find my way around the kitchen without fear or reservation

{don't trust a woman who can't find her way around the kitchen, it's just not right}

  Mama made sure her girls could at least throw together a few meals on their own.

We learned by watching while she cooked, just like my mom learned from her mother.

my mom is a phenomenal cook

end of story.

my kitchen & my pantry: a functional mess

I tried to pretty it up, but there's just no point

this is a lived in house and a lived in kitchen

in my kitchen, we do messy, we do spills, we roll with the punches

but out of the disorder, we make good meals

this is how we do:



{list maker makin' lists, scratchy chicken doodles}



a typical grocery list:

milk

almond milk

mushrooms (x2...I love mushrooms!)

sliced almonds

tomatos

protien powder

soda (of some diet variety)

iced tea

cranberries (dried)

berries (whatever is in season an not $$$)

gatorade

chicken breast

cabbage (my new favorite go to side dish these days)

lemons

limes

agave

frozen blueberries (for vegan chia seed muffins)

string chese

cliff bars (meal in a purse)

dark chocolate

noodles

lettuce

white vinegar

onions

juice

shrimp

 in bulk & {in mason jars}

orzo pasta

pinto beans

oatbran

quinoa

chia seeds

elsewhere in the kitchen;

white rice

brown rice

whole wheat rigatoni

polenta

onions

On the left: the inside fridge, what you'll find:

Feta Cheese,

Salsa

Chicken Broth

GreenYogurt
coconut milk

Eggs
laughing cow cheese wedges
Tejava tea

Diet Arizona Green Tea

Milk
spinach (the Costco bag, it's HUGE!)

Applesauce (for baking)

On the right: the garage fridge, what you'll find:

Blue Moon, Raspberry (my newest love in life)

gatorade

bottled water

various mixers

in the cabinets:

agave

honey

coconut oil

almond butter

seasame seed oil

hot sauce

a variety of teas

spices

vinegar (white, red, balsamic, apple cider)

almonds

walnuts

sun dried tomatoes

peperocinis

flour (wheat, enriched, pastry)

sugar

cocoa powder

various baking supplies

bread crumbs

graham crackers

toasted coconut marshmallows

J-E-L-L-O

Nori wrappers

wild rice in bulk

Kraft Mac & Cheese

canned: black beans, corn, pinto beans, soup, peaches

in the garage and always in bulk from Costco:

garbanzo beans

kidney beans

diced tomatos

tomato sauce

albacore tuna

bottled water

Not quite a hoarder, but there's at least a couple of days worth of food available in and about my house. 

I'm not usually too far from being able to cook up a quick pasta or something simple and homecooked. 

Just do like my Mama said: find good ingredients, make them available, and put them together. 

You just can't go wrong.

~ Lo

Spicy Schezuan Green Beans

Sometime in the last few months as Mel became an electrician's widow (her husband travelling out of the area for the first 6 months of the year for weeks at a time), her and I started getting together about once a week for dinner and a weekly B&M session. 

 No, it's not like S&M - it's b!%@# & moan.

When she told me she was making salmon handrolls for dinner

 (uhh yeah!! - I had been craving them all day), I told her I was committed to cleaning up the house and why didn't she stop by and make them at my place so we could "talk about the blog"

 while I finished stuff up around the house. 

 Easy enough..."can Dave tag along?" she text back.  

Oh yeah, the Hubs is back.  Sure.  The more the merrier. 

As I did a quick clean up in the kitchen so Mel could work her magic when she got to my place, I had some little reminder in the back of my mind that I should make something and I had pinned a recipe for spicy, shcezuan green beans a few months back that I had yet to try out.  

Score one for the pantry, I just happened to have everything I needed. 

As I started cutting, steaming, mixing, and sauteing, Mel's Hubs came into the kitchen declaring "Man those smell good, it smells like PF Changs in here!"  

Score!!!

Literally, this dish took about 15 minutes from prep to finish and not only did it smell like PF Changs, it tasted like it too. 

little sweet, little salty, little bit of a kick of spicy at the end

these beans mean business!!

1. wash and trim green beans
2. place in a pot, cover, and steam with approximately 1/4 of a cup of water for 3-5 minutes

3. Prepare the sauce:

{now I must interject that I am a cook-by-taste and an "eyeballer", it's just how Mama taught me.  Cooking was never complicated in our house growing up, it was good ingredients, taste as you go, and keep it simple.  Mama is a great cook, her methods stand both the taste test and the test of time}

Nonetheless the sauce as I eyeballed it:
2 T fresh ginger
2 T fresh garlic
2 T cooking oil (I used olive)
2 T* chili flakes  (I used chili paste)
*if you're not a fan of the heat, try with a t first and measure up from there, these dish packed a punch by the time it was all said and done, but I'm a fan of the heat, so I don't have to get out of the kitchen!)
2 t sugar
2 T soy sauce
1 T rice wine vinegar
place all the ingredients in a bowl and give it a stir while the green beans steam

4. After steaming the green beans (it steamed my camera lens too), I threw in some sliced mushrooms that were hanging out in the fridge and cranked the heat up to high and threw in the sauce and let it all come to a nice bubble for about 6 minutes until everything was well cooked through and the sauce thickened.
 The.house.smelled.amazing!

Of course, in my kitchen we do spills, we do clumsy, and we do clean up.
Spicy green beans were no exception...it was like a crime scene and before I could get to it, the dog came over and took a lick.  It was like the peanut butter reaction, poor thing just kept licking and licking and licking.
A spicy lesson for the pooch but she lives to bark another day.

I let the beans and mushrooms cook down until they were just cooked through enough that everything was well combined but still had a good bite to it.   Spicy?  Yes, but both Mel's Hubs and I could handle it...yeah, there might have been a little sweatin' and a little nose blowin' but what's life if not a little spicy!?

This.is.the.Lo's.new.signature.sidedish!

Mel's handrolls (recipe here), my green beans, and my absolute new Summertime love, Raspberry Shock Top  with muddled fresh raspberries made for an incredible, impromptu dinner on the back porch.

Mel, Lo, & Sunday Flow

Hot yoga.
It is a passion of mine.

I'm a young "yogi", still practicing & not quite as much of a regular as I'd like to be, but still, I loved hot yoga from the get-go and it's become my thing.
I got to yoga class not only for my body, but for my mind, and my heart.
Some of my friends think I'm crazy for bending & twisting in a hot and moderately humid room for
90-minutes at a time, sweating like a cold glass on a hot Summer day.
Despite that, I've gotten about a dozen of them to at least try a class with me.
I've had a few of them get just as hooked, and a few others try and kill me mid-class with hateful death glances under sweat drenched eyelashes.

Mel has avoided my invite to hot yoga for some time now, but this Sunday, on a whim, I asked her and she agreed to go. Can't lie, I was a little shocked that she agreed.
Her reaction in the past when I've asked her is "no way, no how, I'm just not ready for that."
Fair enough. However in the last few months, she's lost about 30 lbs with her strict diet and she had been practicing mat Pilates. I made it to a few classes with her and knew that she could probably hang in the heat of the Sunday "Mellow Flow" class.

One of my favorite teachers, Krista, teaches this class.
It's the "coolest" of the classes, with the temperature sitting at just about 87* & it's one of the grooviest of the classes, 'cause well Krista is a perfect combination of Goldie Hawn and Ethel Mertz.
Krista is hugs, smiles, and words of humor that bring ease and levity to practice.
Sunday morning class is about soft candlelight, community, and calm.
It's Sunday Morning Mellow Flow.


Each yoga class always comes with a mantra for the practice.
Sunday's mantra was a list:
1: Love - immense love
2: Moderation
3: Humility
Krista added the 4th: Happy
The instruction was to have all these things for ourselves and for our practice during our 90 minute class.

As we sat down, both of us sore and stiff from the long week, me hurting from walking/running a 5K the night before and having not slept in 3 days, I could barely lie in shavasana (corpse pose) without wincing.
I couldn't even lie like a dead body without hurting!!!

Mel leaned over and whispered to me that the last time she tried yoga, she got kicked out for falling over.
I just looked at her like, "mmmmm-kay, oh please..."
I said "No one in this room will even blink twice if you fall over."

Krista reinforced it right at the beginning of class, she said:
be happy
smile
don't be afraid to fall
(go ahead, read into it, don't be afraid to fall, physically, emotionally, just go with it!)

Upon hearing that I looked over with a glance that said: "Psssssst, Mel, don't be afraid to fall!"
Shortly after that, Mel did. 
She fell. 
It was a short fall and as she looked over at me with her eyes enlarged like she had just committed a crime, I just smiled back like "atta girl, can't fall if you don't even try in the first place."

So we got into class, up dog, down dog, cobra, pigeon, lizard, child's pose...
We did something that doesn't have a name - it was: bend over, grab the backs of your ankles or your shins, let your head hang down heavy,  and walk in a circle. 
Yeah, picture twenty spandex clad, sweaty women laughing their asses off doing that. 
Go ahead, pause reading this post for a second and do it yourself.  I dare you!

There was also some kind of other twist, I don't know the name of it - it was a sideways bend with one arm snaked through your leg, the other arm looped over your back, grabbing for your hands to connect and hold on, & then finally turning your head up and look at the ceiling.
I did it the best I could, not quite with my hands touching, but close enough and I looked up at the ceiling.
It only took about three seconds before sweat rolled into my nostril and it was like when you suck water into your nose at the pool and you think you're gonna drown. 
I thought I was gonna drown.

THERE IS NO DROWING IN HOT YOGA!!

Mel - she kept up with all of it, modified what she didn't know or couldn't get right away, but she kept up thoroughout, with the young yogis the old yogis, she did soo good for all 90 minutes without stopping! 

As we laid in our last shavasana, Krista's voice floated over the soft music playing, reminding us to:
watch your breath
soften your thoughts
know that you're safe, "Mother Earth" is holding you
(I interpretted my own spiritual meaning).

Our final moments on the mat, we sat silently, legs crossed, hands to heart center, heads bowed:
bowed to ourselves, our practice, to dedicating our time spent to someone close to us:
I thought of all the people close to me and I prayed.
I prayed like I was an auctioneer. Just as fast as I could think of a name, I said a short prayer.

For: safety, comfort, peace, wisdom, courage, understanding, forgiveness, healing, I prayed for it all...

At the end of class, after the music was of and we were moving around, I looked at Mel, looking to see if she was going to need an IV or maybe a foam bat to hit me with but she needed neither.
She looked a little bit surprised that she made it through class, saying she had never sweat so much in her life but she liked it and even though she fell, she made it through the class like a champ. 

Krista agreed.  There were hugs.  Sweaty hugs.

Mel kickin' some beginners hot yoga butt, made me think of one of my favorite sayings:

Don't be afraid to step out to the edge and take a leap.

Don't be afraid to fall.

pssttt....don't be afraid to go to hot yoga with me!!!

Namaste, my friends.

~ Lo