Easy Homemade Salsa

Good morning!  I hope you all had a wonderful three day weekend!  Back to the grind today… 

Today I want to share with you an easy homemade salsa recipe!  My stepmom gave it to me back in the day, who I believe got it from my aunt.  I love it because it’s delicious, cheap, and so easy! 

I made it all the time in college for get togethers, study parties, and midnight snacking.  It was always a big hit!  (You can see it on the coffee table in the photo below. 🙂 )

I haven’t made it in quite some time, mostly because I forgot about it.  Then some friends of our’s invited us over for dinner last night and asked us to bring chips and salsa.  I immediately thought of this easy homemade salsa and got to work on it!

Easy Homemade Salsa

1 can stewed tomatoes

1/2 cup sliced green or red bell pepper

1/2 cup sliced onion (red or white)

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

1 tablespoon lime juice

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon coriander

1 teaspoon salt

1-5 teaspoons red pepper flakes to taste (depending on level of spicyness)

Directions:

Put all ingredients in food processor.  Blend well. 

Do a taste test and determine whether you want to add more red pepper flakes.  (1-2 tsp.=mild; 2-3 tsp.=medium; 4-5 tsp.=hot)  Pour salsa into bowl and dig in!

Last night was a perfect evening to be sitting out on our friends’ patio enjoying drinks and chips and salsa.  We visited for awhile before heading inside to sit down for dinner.  We enjoyed grilled teriyaki salmon, smashed potatoes, garlic bread, and a pasta/veggie salad.  I didn’t capture any photos of my plate, but just trust me when I say that it was a wonderful meal.  The grilled teriyaki salmon was especially a big hit!  We had a great evening filled with lots of good conversations, laughs, and food.  Labor Day weekend definitely ended on a good note! 

Questions:

• Do you have a “staple food” you bring to dinner get-togethers?
• Do you like mild, medium, or hot salsa best?
• What did you do yesterday for Labor Day?

Short But Sweet Camping Trip

Happy Saturday!  Usually we get home on Sunday when we go camping so it’s feelin’ like a Sunday to me.  Kinda awesome to know that it’s not though and that it’s a long weekend!  I wish we could have stayed until Sunday or Monday, but Cody had a job to get to for work and I have to be at church (work) tomorrow morning.  Nonetheless, we had a great time with a great group of people! 

On our trip there, we passed this beautiful waterfall named “Bridal Veil Falls”.  Such incredible scenery!  I still am amazed at times at how beautiful of a state we live in. 

We also made a very necessary pit stop at one of our favorite milkshake spots in Heber. 

Heber is a tiny town about an hour away from our house, so we don’t pass Granny’s often.  It was quite the treat!

Cookie dough milkshake for me!!  Mmmm and it sure was yummy.  Cody got a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup milkshake which was also a tempting choice for me.  Cookie dough and Reese’s are my two favorites, so it’s always a toss up between the two.  Luckily, they’re two of Cody’s favorites too, so we always swap a few bites. 🙂

I like their motto too!  It was totally what we did last night… 😉

We got to camp right before dark to set up the tent and get the campfire going.  I was starvin’ marvin for some real food, so we got our burgers going right away too.  Cody had a couple hamburgers and I had a turkey burger.  We, of course, ended the evening with roasting some marshmallows which resulted in S’MORES!  I only had one considering I had a thick and creamy milkshake a few hours before. 

It got super chilly last night.  I didn’t want to get out of my sleeping bag + the 10 other blankets on top of me this morning because it was so cold.  My tummy was grumbling for some breakfast and coffee though, so I managed to finally get up.  I bought our traditional, easy camping food breakfast, Clif bars.  I tried the white chocolate macademia nut this time, and I loved it.  It might just be one of my top favorites now.  Cody had the chocolate brownie Clif (his favorite), and we each had a peach with our bars. 

source

We ate breakfast and chatted around the campfire a bit until it warmed up.

After breakfast we decided to head down to the nearby resevoir so the dogs could swim.  The boys decided to go for a swim with the dogs while the ladies sat and visited some more.

Before we left, I made Cody a couple peanut butter sandwiches and an open faced peanut butter and banana sandwich for me along with some baby carrots.  You never can go wrong with peanut butter sandwiches! 🙂

We had such a fun time with this wonderful group of people!  They have all become such great friends of our’s, and I’m so glad we were able to spend part of our weekend with them.

I’m off to cook us up some dinner and relax on the couch!