Tag Archives: peach

Flip Flops On The Rocks, Food

A Summer Smoothie ~ Fresh Ginger & Homegrown Peach

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My friend Vicki gave me some mini homegrown peaches. Thanks, Mama!

This morning I gathered four of them, some fresh ginger, a squeeze of honey, a few big spoonfuls of plain yogurt, a splash of milk and about 2 cups crushed ice and gave it all a whirl in the blender.

It made the most beautiful pastel orange smoothie with nice specks from the fuzzy skins that I left on…

I put just enough ginger…about 2 tsp grated. It complements the peaches perfectly and the honey gives it just the right amount of sweetness.

{I keep a big piece of ginger root in the freezer in a plastic bag. When I need it for a recipe, I pull it out, use a potato peeler to remove the skin just from the section that I’m going to use and grate in on a microplane}

Summer through a straw!

Fiestas & Fetes, Friends, Fun

All Hallow’s Eve 2010

Phew!

Halloween was lots of fun, but I am pumpkin’d, witch’d, goblin’d and candied out!

I’m so glad I decided to dress up this year…it added so much to the night. I spent a grand total of $8 on our costumes this year ~ Elliott reused her dance recital costume, Holden borrowed his and I spent $5 on handcuffs and $3 on a cheetah print beanie that I fancied up with some orange rosettes to match my inmate threads!

A gal stopped me on the street and commented on my rosettes…why thank you! She asked me if I sell them…well, no I don’t, but maybe I should. Which got me thinking….stay tuned!

Getting back to trick-or-treating…we decided to go to our friends’ neighborhood this year as they have a street that goes all out and has haunted houses and stuff. There were swarms of people, my goodness!

Holden was finished before we even started:

10 minutes before we were to leave!

He rallied and we were on our way…

Perpetual mouthful of candy!

LOVE, love, love the red door on this house…

Holdy was always about 3 houses behind the group, but would catch up every now and then…

We had a great time and all was well and good until we got separated and Elliott began to worry about me {she was with her friends and my mom and Jay and I were with Holden}. Apparently she thought I was “lost” and then saw a Sheriff’s car and thought that maybe I’d gotten picked up since I told her I was an escaped inmate! Oops!

We had our annual Halloween chili and cornbread for dinner and enjoyed cobbler with the fresh peaches we picked a couple weeks ago. The cobbler was a breeze to make and turned out much better than I thought it would. Here is the recipe I followed.

This year’s ghoulish cocktail was “swamp water“…

{via}

We kept ours green, but you can add a touch of grenadine or blue curaçao to change up the color {as seen in the above pic}. Personally, I thought it was just fine the way it was. This is the perfect group cocktail to make in a big bowl with lots of ice and a ladle and people can serve themselves.

Already looking forward to next year and planning my costume! I’ve been missing out all these years…

Food, Frugal Finds

Super Crazy Condiment Girl

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OK, if you’re familiar with Yo Gabba Gabba (and unfortunately I’m afraid I AM) then you must say the title of this post like they do on the show ~ “Super Martian Robot Girrrl”.

I know lately I have been promoting all these random condiments that I am somehow all of a sudden obsessed over! I swear I’m not being reimbursed at all for my many plugs lately. I just love them so much and want to share….they’re nothing fancy, but I find myself using them ALL the time. I feel like I should wear a super hero costume and cape and fly around rescuing everyone’s boring lunches and spicing up people’s bland dinners with all these fabulous new finds of mine. Believe me, we were in a rut with our meals, but lately I have been kicking everything up a notch just by adding some zest here and there.

First, there was the Red Pepper spread from Trader Joe’s.

Then the Sriracha pepper sauce.

Then my recent jarred jalapeño push.

Now I’m sharing my newest discovery:

Mango Peach salsa from Smart & Final!

OMG is it good! I served it at the taco bar at Holden’s party and several people asked me if I made it. There are HUGE chunks of mango. It was super cheap (like $2.50) and in the refrigerated section! I am out and need to go back and get more. Which brings me to my next topic ~ Smart & Final.

Each week we get an ad for S&F in the mail. I spotted a couple things I needed for Holden’s party and went to the nearest one to pick them up. I haven’t had the best image of S&F since the couple stores I’ve been in before were a little sketchy. The one near us is only a couple years old, clean and organized. I always thought S&F was similar to Costco where you have to buy larger quantities of stuff….NO, not entirely so. It’s almost like a grocery store and a mini-Costco all in one. I went in for 2 or 3 things and ended up doing ALL my grocery shopping there…swear! They have produce and let me just say that I am picky about my produce! I am the one that stands there fondling every onion, squeezing every cantaloupe, checking for bruises on every apple. The produce guy is probably thinking,”Easy, Lady! Just pick one already!” My point is, I actually got some produce there. They have their own store brand too and it’s actually completely fine.

So now I have another grocery store I need to figure into my food trips! There are things that I love about a lot of different stores…Albertson’s is close, Vons has good deals, Super Wal-mart has super cheap food prices, Trader Joe’s is a given and now I’ve discovered that S&F is pretty cool too!

Get “smart” people! Check it out…you may end up loving it as much as I do!

P.S. Coming up later today….Sushi 101: Spicy California Rolls & Teriyaki Chicken Rolls