Most Requested Recipes

Here are 3 of my favorite recipes that other people love too.  I would normally include a photo with each one, because I'm all about the photos, right?  But I've feeling lazy about picture taking lately, and taking food photos means cleaning up my kitchen, making the food, and well... it's just too hot right now to care that much!

Salsa
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 small can diced green chilies
1 small can El Pato (found in mex food isle)
1 bell pepper, diced
1 onion, diced
1 bunch of cilantro, chopped
juice of one lime
1 large scoop of garlic (from the jar)
1/4-1/3 c sugar
a pinch of salt
Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.  I like my salsa less chunky, so I generally take half the bowl, dump it into my blender and liquify it.  Then I mix it back in with the chunky stuff for the perfect consistancy.  Sugar is my secret ingredient in salsa.  El Pato is Sheri's. (I hope she doesn't mind me sharing her secret ingredient.)   She makes amazing salsa too, and mentioned that she adds this stuff, so we gave it a try, and we love how it made our salsa taste!  :)

Broccoli Tortellini Salad
20 ounces cheese filled tortellini (I use the kind you find in the refrigerator section)
3 heads of broccoli, cut into florets (don't use the stems)
6 slices of bacon (I like the precooked kind... just nuke and crumble)
1 c sunflower seeds
1 c craisins
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup mayo
1/2 cup sugar
2 t cider vinegar
Cook and crumble the bacon.  Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and cook tortellini, al dente.  (1-2 minutes less than package indicates.)  Remove tortellini from boiling water, rinse with cold water and set aside to cool.  Bring the pot back to a boil and dump in the broccoli.  Boil for one minute, just until tender, drain.  Mix mayo, sugar and vinegar to create the dressing.  Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and toss the dressing over the top.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
3/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar
2 sticks butter or margarine
1 egg
2 1/4 flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
2 cups chocolate chips
Cream together sugars, butter and egg.  Add dry ingredients, mix well.  Add chocolate chips.  Bake at 375 for 7-8 minutes.

Random Homemade Awesomeness

I'm not a person to go to a lot of trouble to make things from scratch.  I would rather buy ice cream than go to the expense and trouble of making it.  Compounded by the fact that I can no longer eat ice cream (thank you lactose intolerance), my ice cream maker sits on a shelf in the garage and collects dust.  Since Eric became gluten intolerant, I've tried several times to make gluten free bread.  A store bought loaf of gluten free bread is $5.50 and yields about six very small sandwiches.  The slices are the size of a baguette.  However, I've come to the conclusion that making it is almost as expensive (the specialty flours cost $3-4 alone for one loaf of bread) and it's a crap shoot at best.  Sometimes it comes out great, sometimes it doesn't.  I hate wasting an entire afternoon and $4 of flour for a crappy loaf of bread.

But, I love a good bargain.  And I'm not an extreme couponer.  I don't see myself ever going that crazy.      Having said all that, here are recipes for 3 products I LOVE and we use a lot!  And, the homemade equivalent is super cheap to the store bought equivalent... not to mention easy to make!

Homemade Gatorade
2 qts water
1 package of unsweetened Kool-aid
1/2 t. table salt
1/2 t. morton's lite salt
10 T sugar

The best way to do this that we've found is to buy a 64 oz bottle of gatorade at Walmart for a buck-fifty.  Then after you've drunk it, you can make your own and refill the bottle over and over again.  We fill the bottle half way, put the ingredients in, screw the lid on, shake well, fill the rest of the bottle up with water and shake again.  Voila... 64 oz of Gatorade for about fifty cents!  :)

Brown Sugar Body Scrub
2 C brown sugar
1 C white sugar
1 C oil
1 T vanilla

Mix the sugars in a bowl until there are no lumps.  Add oil and vanilla, mix well.  Put in a plastic container and store in the shower so you can rub it all over your heels in the shower.  Since I started using this stuff, I haven't had one cracked heel.  That says a lot, since it's a chronic problem I've had living in the desert.

Granite Cleaner
Take an old windex bottle and fill it 1/8 full with rubbing alcohol.  Then add one drop of dish soap.  (Really, one drop is more than enough.)  You can add a drop or two of essential oils if you have them for scent, but I don't.  Then fill the bottle up the rest of the way with water and you have a super cheap, great granite cleaner!

My Own Version of Paradise

I have a secret love affair with the Pacific Northwest.  I always have... it started when I was a kid and we would road trip up to Canada... I loved driving through Portland and Seattle.  I love greenery.  I love seasons.  I love cool temperatures.  I love rain!

March marked a big milestone for our family.  We have officially lived in Arizona longer than we've lived anywhere else.  Quite honestly, I thought by now, I'd like here more than I do.  I still loathe summer.  I still dislike winter.  It's too hot in the summer, and not cold enough in the winter.  I can't even wear a turtleneck sweater without having to peel it off after lunch because it's pushing 80 degrees outside.  I love winter clothing, but it sits and collects dust in my closet.  I refuse to get rid of my faves though, because someday I'll live somewhere better.  Someday....

Eric and I are approaching a big anniversary.  This December will be 20 years for us.  Getting married over Christmas break has it's drawbacks.  Not being able to sneak away on your anniversary without kids is one of them.  The holidays make it really tough to get babysitters, etc.  We found ourselves with some Southwest Airlines tickets to use up before mid July, so we planned a short 3 day trip to Portland.  Eric goes to Portland all the time for work, so he didn't see the adventure in this, but I've never actually stayed in Portland and I've been dying to hike the Columbia River Gorge, and I pushed him until he caved.  I wanted to pick out just 10 of my favorite pictures from our trip, but I couldn't narrow it down... so if greenery, waterfalls and nature, aren't your thing, you might want to stop reading now.  :)

Day One

After we flew in,we had about six hours to kill before we could check into the hotel.  We decided to drive out to the coast.  Thank goodness for a rental car that got good gas mileage!  We drove to Tillamook, the legendary home of the delicious cheese factory and had lunch at a Rodeo themed cafe.  Then we followed the coastal road up towards Astoria.  (Remember that city from Goonies?)  En route, we stopped at this State Beach.  The parking lot was next to the highway, and you walked along this path to get to the beach.  I was pretty sure I'd died and gone to heaven.  The only thing missing were my kids.  

Oswald West State Beach:  Did you know Oregonians LOVE to surf?  Oh yeah, they were out in full force on the waves!

Confession:  I love to photograph fences.  Don't ask me why.  

 We drove all the way up the coast to Astoria and then cut east again back to Portland.  It was a lot of driving, but gorgeous all the way.  I still can't understand why you aren't allowed to pump your own gas in Oregon.  Weirdos...

Day Two

We had breakfast next to David Robinson in the hotel.  Only one person in the room approached him while he ate.  I don't know if that's good or bad.  I'm sure celeb's love it when no one recognizes them, and they can eat a meal in peace, but this hotel was full of teenagers in town for basketball camp.  Sad that none of them even knew they were in the presence of one of the greatest basketball players ever! 

We spent the whole day exploring the Columbia River Gorge.  We started off going to Bonneville Dam where we knew we could buy a parking pass for the various parking lots along our route.  The dam was impressive, as was the fish hatchery next door.  Look at these gorgeous hydrangeas!  You can't find these in the desert! 

 I spoke to an older lady who sold me the parking pass and asked her what she thought the best waterfall hike was, and she gave us excellent advice.  She recommended Wahclella Falls.  It's a two mile loop of gorgeous scenery with a beautiful waterfall at the end.  She was right... and it wasn't nearly as crowded as some of the other waterfalls we visited.

Confession:  I hope this is where I get to live in heaven.

This is Horsetail Falls.  Not the most picturesque waterfall we saw, but I absolutely loved this photo.  I'm super thankful I was even able to get some decent shots of any of the waterfalls... because who flew to Portland without her tripod?  Yep, I did.  :(  I substituted all kinds of rocks and ledges for my lack of equipment.  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

Who wears jeans in Portland on a gorgeous July day?  People visiting from Phoenix!

The last waterfall we visited was Multnomah Falls.  This has got to be the biggest tourist trap EVER!  We decided to do the one mile hike to the top of the falls to escape some of the crazy crowds, but it was crowded up there too.  It was an awesome and challenging hike.  Eric made me promise not to post the picture a stranger took of us at the top.  There's a lot of unsightly sweat stains involved.  

 Looking down over 600 feet to the bottom... the people look very small down there!

One more fence photo!  :)

The next day we slept late and wandered around the area a bit in the car before we headed to the airport.  If it wasn't 1350 miles each way, we would be making a Portland area camping trip every summer from here on out.  That's how badly I want to go back.  After seeing the pictures, the kids are on board with that plan.  Hmmm... summer of 2013... I need to start scheming now!