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....

I'm going, going, back, back to Cali, Cali

After a 3 hour delay, a wonderful flight on Virgin America,  and some scary turbulence, I am so thrilled to be back out in California!  I have been coming out here annually since I was 6 years old and even lived out here for most of high school.  Last year, since I was pregnant I didn't want to travel quite so far, so we skipped the trip and I missed it.  I usually go straight to the Bay Area, but this year I decided to hang out in the LA area.
First off, let me say, there is nothing like the beautiful light from the sun in California.  The weather is gorgeous, its been about 80 degrees and sunny, most of the time.  I have been here countless times so I don't have any major plans I just kind of wanted to go with the flow and experience SoCal as a grown up.
Our first outing was to Venice Beach.  I remember going as a child and enjoyed swimming and buying little trinkets along the walking path.  It was nice to take my son to see the local artisans,  the skate park and allow him to pick out some trinkets..he's loves tchotchkes!
It was nice experiencing Venice as an adult.  I love the aesthetic there.  The colorful homes, the murals and all of the succulents, they literally are everywhere.  I know that LA is truly in a valley and that there are deserts surrounding the area, but it wasn't until this trip and seeing all of the native cacti and succulents  that it became official in my mind.  We checked out the canal, which I had never seen in person and accidentally interrupted a scene they were filming for Californication.
We ended the day with my favorite fast food burger joint in Cali...In and Out burger!

How to chose the perfect melon

One thing I love about summer is the large variety of my favorite fruits, like melons.  It took me a while to learn how to pick them, but I have it down now and thought I'd share!


Cantaloupe
Color-should be tan-yellow, avoid the green ones
Firmness-should be slightly soft overall, avoid ones with soft spots
Smell-smell where the stem would have been, it should smell like cantaloupe

Honeydew
Color-Light green-yellow
Firmness-should be slightly soft overall, avoid ones with soft spots
Smell-When you smell at the stem area, it should smell like honeydew

Watermelon
Color-Green, with a yellow spot (that's where it has been lying on the ground during the growing phase)
Firmness-should be firm and sound hollow when you knock on its rind
Smell-I haven't noticed a significant smell

Also, if they're really ripe, they can almost smell like they've gone bad, but will be super sweet.  Once you've chosen your perfect melon its time to cut it up.  Here's my method:

If you go to the store and there aren't any ripe melons, you can still get one and let it ripen on your counter for a few days!

Enjoy!

Paper overload!

I recently moved my desk and had to temporarily relocate all the crap that has accumulated on it and oh my!   I've always had a paper pile, but its gotten really bad now.  Not only is it in piles, its in bags.  Its on my dining table and the piano and we can't even eat dinner at the table now.  A part of me wants to just throw the bags out.  I haven't looked in them in the last 6 months there can't be anything important in them right?  But the nervous side won't let me, just in case there's something!

This picture doesn't truly do it justice, there's more that I am just too embarrassed to show!  A friend told me a funny story about how her piles were taking over her dining room ( sound familiar) and she had friends coming over and moved her bags to her car...I would totally do that!

I am going to be traveling soon and don't wish to return to this mess, so my goal is to start chipping away at it over the next few days.  Let's see if I can get through it!

How do you handle all the surplus mail, kids artwork and school forms and keep your sanity?

My Baby's at the Beach

The other day we took the baby to the beach for the first time and what a treat it was!  It was warm and sunny, but the water was too cold for me.  I usually don't get in until late July-early August anyway.  We hung out for a few hours and Mena enjoyed playing in the sand.  I uploaded this video on my channel of our excursion.  Enjoy!