wellness wednesday: yum (and healthy!) grub

Christian and I made this Taboule salad a few weeks ago, and we are certifiably obsessed with it. 

It might not be as good as Pita Jungle, but it's a fresh, easy, delicious, filling meal you can cook at home.

I highly recommend making this. It's SO SO YUM.

photo cred

Taboule Salad:

(with modifications, brought to you by chef Brooke)

Ingredients:

1 package Taboule mix (we use the Near East brand. It's super cheap at Walmart!)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup (4 oz) crumbled feta cheese

1 large tomato, chopped (we use 2 roma tomatoes usually, which probably yields about the same amount)

1/4 cup chopped fresh basil (I'm not a huge fan of basil, so we've been omitting this. It's probably good though!)

Romaine lettuce leaves (we also use spinach, which is super yum and super healthy)

Lemon wedges

**We also add shredded chicken breast to ours as well, for a little extra protein and flavor. So good**

Instructions:

1. Cook Taboule according to package directions

2. Chill for 30 minutes

3. Add olive oil and  lemon juice

(I actually just use a whole lemon. It's a little more than what the recipe calls for, but I LOVE my food with extra lemon/lime/citrus, and so does Christian so.... there you go.)

4. Chill over night (Originally you only need to let it chill for 2 hours before serving. We cook it the night before because it's a lot more time efficient during the week when we usually don't home until after 8 every evening.)

5. Before serving, add tomatoes, feta, lettuce, and chicken. If you love lemon like I do, you can also squeeze a bunch of extra juice on right before serving. This is also super good with chopped cucumber, or any other veggies you feel like adding!

Enjoy!

a few things

- Here are some snapshots from our weekend, mostly because I don't feel like detailing it all. 

But just so you know, it was a GREAT 5 days off of work.

Fur vest courtesy of some insane Black Friday shopping. 

Now I will be able to dress up like a polar bear if ever there was an occasion!

Here's a secret: 

I ABHOR these kind of olives. 

Each time I try and eat one, I'm pretty sure the salt is going to make me shrivel up and die.

But because I love my husband, and he loves these olives, I am trying so hard to learn to love them too.

Sacrifices people.

Also, 2Amys is the BEST food we've had in D.C. so far.

And that's saying something, because there are some great eats here!

Cool picture with some plants at the Botanic Gardens.

Obviously enthused by my hamburger at Good Stuff Eatery.

If you are ever in D.C., you must try their toasted marshmallow shake.

Weirdly delicious!

-Speaking of work.... today I went to Michaels with the mother of the girl I nanny, the grandmother of the girl I nanny, and let's not forget.... the actual girl I nanny. 

Sometimes I wonder why they pay me to just hang out with them all day.......

- I think I have food poisoning. 

Almost definitely.

Christian and I ate some VERY questionable fish on Sunday

(don't ever eat fish if it's been sitting in your fridge for over 3 days.... let alone a WEEK. I know. We're sick)

- Today on the bus, I saw a man writing imaginary things on the window for a good 20 minutes.

One thing I love about D.C. is all the colorful people. 

"Colorful" doesn't even come CLOSE to accurately describing things sometimes. 

- And finally, as sad as I am to be leaving this amazing city NEXT WEEK

(soooo crazy!)

I am mega pumped to be with our families in Florida for almost a solid month. 

The weather is going to be amazing, and let's not even talk about the unadulterated time with our loved ones.

It's sad that the Showalter side doesn't live in Mesa anymore, but Florida isn't a bad fall back.

Until next time, 

peace and blessings!

cranberry relish and a life lesson

So I'm just going to get right to the point and tell you that what I'm about to share is the literal BEST thing you will ever eat at Thanksgiving. 

Also maybe in your entire life.

I give you my mom's most famous and delicious holiday recipe:

CRANBERRY RELISH

• INGREDIENTS
• 2 cups fresh or defrosted frozen cranberries
• 1/4 cup diced red onion
• 1 large jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 2 blood oranges, or navel oranges, peeled, sectioned, and cut into 1/4-inch pieces, juices reserved
• 2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 stalks celery, peeled to remove strings, cut in 1/4-inch dice
• 1/4 cup fresh mint leaves, coarsely chopped
• 
  

DIRECTIONS

1. Place cranberries in food processor, and pulse to chop coarsely, about five pulses. Transfer to a medium bowl.
2. Add onion, jalapeno, lime juice, orange sections and juice, ginger, sugar, and celery; mix gently. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days. Just before serving, add mint and toss to combine.

I doubled the recipe, and it fed about 25 people, with leftovers.

(So Christian and I could eat spoonful after spoonful, of course!)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

And now I have some words of wisdom to impart.

Notice how the recipe calls for jalapenos.

Well this girl doesn't work with those bad boys enough to remember not to touch the seeds.

So there I am, ripping them out with my bare fingers, and COUGHING because the peppers were so hot that they were asphyxiating me.

And about 20 minutes later, I'm like:

"MOTHER THERESA! THERE MUST BE LITERAL LAVA COMING OUT MY FINGERTIPS BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE I AM GOING TO DIE!"

Seriously I started crying.

(Christian doesn't know this because he was at the grocery store. So there you go.

The embarassment is out)

So then he gets home and I'm all:

"I NEED A REMEDY IN ABOUT 10 SECONDS BECAUSE SATAN IS NOW LIVING IN MY FINGERS!"

So I tried washing my hands about 20 times.

(Which only made it horrifically worse)

Then I tried rubbing lime juice all over my fingers, which helped for a hot *pun intended* 4 seconds.

Then I tried SOAKING my fingers in the lime juice, which only helped for a slightly longer period.

Then I tried using rubbing alcohol, which failed miserably.

Then I resorted to soaking my fingers in milk, and thankfully it worked some amazing magic.

And THEN, I mixed the lime juice with the milk, which turned it into a bad version of sour cream and it was unbelievably gross because it was sort of sticking to my fingers, but it was nice because then I didn't have to just leave my fingers sitting in a bowl of milk. 

Which is like my worst nightmare because I ABHOR milk.

And so, about 3 hours, 2 tylenol, lots of grumpies, and 1/4 gallon of milk later, the pain was finally subsiding.

And I went to bed with wrinkly milk-soaked fingers that smelled like I had been eating mexican food and ice cream for a week straight.

NOT A GOOD COMBINATION.

Lesson?

Next time, wear gloves.