Food Processor Salsa

Since this is my first real recipe post, I should preface this by saying that Google taught me how to cook. Well, that's a bit unfair. I Google almost every recipe I make, but Mom taught me how to make things taste good. As a teenager in the kitchen (sooo long ago) I watched my mom. I helped too, but with her bomb cooking skills it was better for everyone if I just watched most of the time.

Shout out to Mom for using spices, olive oil and lemons. Lots of lemons. And kudos for not measuring things. With cookies or cake or a new recipe or whatever yeah, sure, but when you have to get dinner on the table?

Ain't nobody got time fo dat.

Somewhere in two years of cooking on my own I became a non-measuring monster. Sometimes it gets me, well the food, into trouble. But most of the time it's worth it. TRY IT! Plus, when everything turns out and hubby walks in the door as you just happen to be pulling dinner out of the oven, you will have the guilty pleasure of knowing that you hardly measured anything. What a pro.

On that note, here's a recipe I found online (don't ask me where) a few weeks ago that I've made three times now. Yummers! I've included the measurements, but I usually tweak it.

Tweaking is the key to making food that tastes good to you.

Food Processor Salsa

1 can (28 oz) Whole Tomatoes With Juice

2 cans (10oz) Dice Tomatoes and Green Chilies

1/4 cup chopped onion (I've left this out on accident and it still tasted great)

1 clove Garlic, minced (But if you're using a food processor, you only need to chop it into chunks)

1 whole Jalapeno, quartered and sliced thin (This matters or you get random huge bites of jalapeno...ah!)

1/4 teaspoon Sugar (flexible, this helps balance the acidity of all those tomatoes)

1/4 teaspoon Salt (flexible, really to taste)

1/4 teaspoon Cumin (I usually add in more)

1/2 cup Cilantro (I usually just lop off half of the bunch and throw it in there)

Juice of 1 lime 

Combine all of the ingredients in your food processor/blender, then pulse about 10-15 times. AND THAT'S IT! Doesn't that just make you want to make salsa allll the time? It's a great snack and it's a cheap recipe, so nothin's stopping you now! 

Throw it in the fridge and it keeps for quite a while. One batch only ever lasts my husband and I about a week, but it tastes just as good at the end of the week as it did at the beginning. We eat it with scrambled eggs, chips, or mexican food...or a spoon (shhh). 

***NOTE: This is a BIG batch. A 12-cup food processor would be ideal, but I use my 9-cup one and just spoon a bunch out before I take the container off of the base so that it doesn't spill everywhere (am I even making sense?). I'm guessing a blender would work just fine for this recipe too, but I haven't tried it yet. 

Have fun NOT measuring!

XO,

Emma

Meet the Robinsons

Meet Mr. & Mrs. Robinson (aka my husband and I).

We've been married exactly one month now and it has easily been the best month of my life.

We've had quite the month! Vacations, birthdays, graduations, jobs, training for a Ragnar and -- oh yeah-- unpacking have kept us busy little bees. I'm beginning to think that I should start a blog called "The Adventures of Living in a Basement". Let me tell you, the discoveries are endless. Coming soon: How to bake a birthday cake in a slanted oven!

         

That being said, I'm sort of in love with our *tiny* apartment.

Is it due to the fact that I can touch the ceiling without going on my tippy toes? Maybe. But mostly it's because it "ours". Because my husband hung the picture frames and I made the bed like a true Haymond/nursing student. Because WE DON'T HAVE TO SHARE THE FRIDGE.

So married life is fantastic! We're both just chugging along at our jobs: Colton at PepBoys and me at the clinic. Thank goodness there is still time to attend the occasional demolition derby and smashball it up at the park.

XO,

Emma

Christmas Season Motto

There is so much to be done this time of year with all the business of travelling, finals, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, running here and there, getting presents, scraping the ice off the car....GASP! The list goes on. With the never-ending to-do list written neatly in my planner each day, sometimes I feel that I am more worried about myself and the things I have to get done than the people around me. 

And so now I hereby officially deem one of my favorite quotes as my Christmas season motto:

 "Never let a a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved." 

-Thomas S. Monson

I whispered silent prayers throughout my day to my Father in Heaven, asking Him to let me feel some of the love He has for His children. Asking Him to help me as I tried a little harder to pay attention to how I thought  about and acted toward others. 

I am so humbled by the change those little prayers brought.

People weren't as frustrating anymore. Suddenly, instead of criticisms, I felt something closer to empathy. If I saw somebody who wasn't feeling their best, it was easier to think of reasons they might be having a fluke day than assuming they were always that way. It was so much easier, and more pleasant, to presume the good and doubt the bad.

Because isn't that what Christmas is about? Isn't it about treating others as Christ would if He were in the room? As I remember my Savior this season and celebrate His life, I hope I can do a little more to show it. 

This Christmas season, I am grateful for my Savior, Jesus Christ. I am so glad that He gives me the benefit of the doubt, even if I do not always give it to others, even if I don't deserve it. I'm so thankful that His life proved that people are more important than things.

Ms. Emma