GUACAMOLE SALAD

Guacamole Salad: Ina Garten

I love salads. I hate boring salads.

One of my favorites is a Barefoot Contessa recipe which is great as a side to quesadillas (as we had for dinner tonight), on top of tacos, on top of chopped romaine lettuce, or as a dip for chips. The ingredients are of course always available, but tomatoes and avocados get particularly delish this time of year. Try it sometime, it's super easy to throw together and oh so fresh and tasty!

Ingredients

1 pint grape tomatoes, halved

• 1 yellow bell pepper, seeded and 1/2-inch diced
• 1 (15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 cup small diced red onion
• 2 tablespoons minced jalapeno peppers, seeded (2 peppers)
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated lime zest
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (2 limes)
• 1/4 cup good olive oil
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
• 2 ripe Hass avocados, seeded, peeled, and 1/2-inch diced

Directions

Place the tomatoes, yellow pepper, black beans, red onion, jalapeno peppers, and lime zest in a large bowl. Whisk together the lime juice, olive oil, salt, black pepper, garlic, and cayenne pepper and pour over the vegetables. Toss well. Just before you serve the salad, fold the avocados in. Check the seasoning and serve immediately.

Bon Appétit!

HELLO MONDAY

I love weekends. I hate to say that I live for 'em, but I totally do!

Friday we got off work a little early to celebrate with Nick's cousin Katie as she graduated from WHS. Congratulations to all of the grads, but especially Katie Mullin, Tyler Shales, and Julie Wren! I have say, this was by far the most enjoyable graduation I've been to yet: Mallory Gillin nailed her amazing speech. I wish I had a video of it, but you can check out Nick's Facebook Page if you are interested!

We love you Katie!

Saturday I tackled a massive pile of dishes and eventually made my way to the refrigerator/freezer and found some really nast-o experiments growing in the back. I located all of my long-lost storage containers and did some serious scrubbing. Once I was done I tackled the pantry and in total we hauled out THREE garbage bags of stuff! I was shocked and we had to make an emergency run to the grocery store to restock our now-empty fridge. So here's the good part of this story: Lately we have been making a conscious effort to be smarter shoppers. Case in point -- reusable grocery bags! I always thought these would be a real hassle, but so long as you remember to take them with you they're great! Eventually I'd like to find some cuter ones because the Safeway standard issue bags aren't so adorable. Any suggestions on where to find some fun ones?

Not cute.

Sunday was our first day helping out with Kinderpraise at our church. Picture this: Nick and Adelae dancing around with a bunch of 3-6 year olds. It was pretty entertaining to say the least. I was pretty impressed with the comprehension of some of the little kiddos... they learned their bible verse and understood the stories surprisingly well for their age. Afterward I asked Nick if he wanted kids (joking) and he said "Only if I can select the ones I want."

We finished off the weekend with a hike up Castlerock, which neither of us had ever done for some reason. We were a little worried about running into snakes since its not a very well-traveled trail and there are lots of hot rocks and grasses which the rattlers love. Thankfully we saw limited wildlife and enjoyed a great view!

Hello Wenatchee

And the Go-Pro's maiden voyage:

Castlerock Hike 6/12/11 from Nick Winters on Vimeo.

ONWARD

I'm not big on reading. I enjoy it, but rarely do I have the focused energy to spend on actually finishing a book that I start. In March of this year we went on a trip to Phoenix, AZ so I picked up the new book by Starbucks' ceo Howard Schultz titled "Onward". After years of being a loyal Starbucks patron, and also actively interested in business concepts,  I was curious what I might find.

This week I finally busted through the last third of the book that has been patiently waiting for me to find free time. What an inspirational story! I think Howard is an exceptional man (even if he did sell the Sonics) and I enjoyed learning more about this company that sometimes gets a bad rap. I highly recommend it. I bought mine at Costco for $10 off the cover price.

And my new favorite quote, which I printed out and posted at my work desk:

"Grow with discipline. Balance intuition with rigor. Innovate around the core. Don't embrace the status quo. Find new ways to see. Never expect a silver bullet. Get your hands dirty. Listen with empathy and communicate with transparency. Tell your story, refusing to let others define you. Use authentic experiences to inspire. Stick to your values, they are your foundation. Hold people accountable but give them the tools to succeed. Make the tough choices; it's how you execute that counts. Be decisive in times of crisis. Be nimble. Find truth and lessons in mistakes. Be responsible for what you see, hear, and do. Believe." -Howard Schultz

WELL FED

All day long it felt like Friday to me. It's 12:20am and I'm still pretending I don't have to go back to work tomorrow. That should be nice and painful at about 7:30 tomorrow! I think this feeling is stemming from the fact that we have taken 2 3-day weekends in a row, making this the first full work week I've had in a while. What a whiner, huh??

Today was Nick's dad's birthday, which meant we got to go to his parents' for dinner. I'd rather not cook on weeknights, so I was pretty excited. And man oh man when we got there the smell of barbeque was in the air! Nick's mom went all out with beer-brined barbeque chicken, slow-cooked ribs (in the smoker!) and of course all the fixings -- coleslaw, potato salad, and baked beans. I would love to be able to stay at home and cook all of these amazing dishes all day. Did I mention the coconut cake? She is my hero! We had a great evening sccchhelebrating Jerry's special day with family. 

 The yummy meats. Did you know I used to be a vegetarian?
Thank goodness I've moved on!

 Coconut Cake!

And the birthday boy! Happy Birthday Jerry!

I BLOG NOW?

And so it begins.

I have been interested in starting my own blog after realizing my interest in reading everyone else's posts, looking at photos, and searching for recipes -- it's like Facebook 2.0 for me! I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this yet, but I hope to keep up on posting regularly. My web designer husband denied me a custom blog until I prove my blogging worthy of the effort I was asking him to put forth. I really feel that the visual aspect of blogs are just as enticing as the words they hold, so that was my main concern with starting my own blog. I did a whole lot of research and looked through hundreds of templates, some of which I really really really wanted. Unfortunately none of the PRETTY ones are free, and all of the COOL ones require some web design skill (or at least a good understanding of the terminology) which I do not possess.

Blogspot seems to be about as user-friendly as it gets and at least somewhat customizable... I guess I can deal with that for now. Eventually I want to upgrade to this baby:

Here's to blogging!