Shrimp and Okra...oh yeah!

Last weekend we took a stroll over to the farmer's market and I get super excited when I saw these okra.  We purchased a crate for $3 and here is the recipe for what I did with them:

Okra and Shrimp Creole

1 lb. Okra, sliced
1 lb. wild Shrimp
1 15oz. tomato sauce
1 15oz. diced tomatoes with green chiles
1/2 onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, diced
1/2 green pepper, diced
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp thyme
salt and pepper to taste

In a skillet, add1 tbsp olive oil, heat over a medium flame.  Add onions and green peppers and saute until onions are translucent.  Add garlic and stir until tender.  Add tomato sauce and diced tomatoes, stir.  Add chili powder, cayenne and thyme.  Add okra and simmer for  15-20 min.  Meanwhile, fill a small pot with water and bring to a boil.  Once boiling add shrimp and cook until shrimp begin turning pink.  Watch closely, they cook quickly.  Once they have began to turn color, remove them from pot and add them to the okra.  Turn temperature down to a low flame and allow stew to simmer and flavors to meld.  Make sure not to overcook though.  Once done, add salt and pepper to taste.  Serve over steamed rice.
 Enjoy!

Baby Hair Accessories

I cannot stand these gigantic flower baby headbands! Judging by her face, Mena agrees with me! Unfortunately, we must be mostly alone, because you can find a surplus of them!  I had great plans of making some headwraps, but never got around to it.  Thankfully, Target and H&M just came out with these bands and clips that I adore.  And, after a lot of wrangling, I got Mena to model her new looks.

How do you style your little one's hair?

Home again

We have finally returned from our trip and like always, its bittersweet.  I love California!  Its beautiful, its laid back and the light there is unlike anywhere else I've been, not to mention, I will thoroughly miss my family.  However, its so nice to be back in my own home and easing back into our routine.

I didn't have a good internet connection while there, so I decided to forgo adding looking for a wifi spot to my daily activities and skipped blogging while there.
This trip was quite a different one for me, which I will go into further detail in another post.  I don't like to be on a schedule per say, but I do make a list of things I'd like to do when I vacation.  That way I can usually get to most of them, as I please but also have chill days.  What I noticed to be a recurring theme on my list was choosing outings which allowed us to take advantage of California's greatest resource....the outdoors.

One of the places we visited was Muir Woods National Monument.

Oh my, it was majestic!.  The forest is located in Mill Valley (right outside of San Francisco) and is full of beautiful, huge redwoods.  They have several hikes you can take, which vary in intensity and length and can show you such locales as the coast.  We decided to take a short one hour hike through the forest.

I took photos, which as hard as I try, can't grasp the true beauty there.  Maybe its because while hiking you are inhaling the fresh, crisp air, and enjoying the forest sounds, which without sounding too crazy are intoxicating.  While walking we came across a sign that had this written on it:

In every walk with nature,

   one receives far more

      than one seeks.

                    -John Muir

This said it all for me!  If you are in the area, definitely check it out....