Fish Tacos with Cream Cheese & Avocado Sauce, Corn and Avocado Salad, & Fresh Citrus Margaritas: A Complete Cinco de Mayo Meal

We had a few friends over for dinner this weekend. With Cinco de Mayo coming up, we knew we wanted to serve Ray's insanely easy and delicious fish tacos with margaritas to celebrate the holiday a little early. The party was a huge success- the kids played together really well (after a few minor melt downs over toys everyone wanted at once,) the weather was cool and breezy, and the food was a big hit! There's really nothing more special than sharing a meal with friends in our back yard while the kids play.

Since the food we served was delicious and really easy to make, I thought I would share the menu in case you're looking for a quick and easy Cinco de Mayo meal for your family.

The Menu:

Fish Tacos with corn or flour tortillas (Ray loves flour, I prefer corn.)
Cream Cheese & Avocado Fish Taco Sauce
Corn & Avocado Salad (My absolute favorite summertime dish)
Beans and Rice (We use Vigo brand- so good!)
Hot Dogs for the kiddos
Watermelon
Fresh Citrus Frozen Margaritas

Fish Tacos: Ray insists this is too simple to be called a recipe, which makes me even more excited to share it with you. I love a meal that's incredibly simple to make, but still tastes really good. Ray's fish tacos are absolutely one of my favorite things he makes, and our friends agreed. "So nummy!" as Emmett likes to say. ;)

Ingredients:

1 pound Wild Pacific Cod (This should serve three. For the party, we made 3 pounds.)
Old Bay Seasoning
1 box Beer Batter
2/3 cup beer (We used an IPA)
Canola oil

Directions: Slice fish into small pieces. Lightly season with Old Bay Seasoning.
Mix Beer Batter and beer in a medium-sized bowl.
Place enough oil in a pot or pan to submerge the fish, and heat it on medium high until it's hot enough to fry. Dip each piece of fish in the beer batter, then submerge in oil for 2 1/2 minutes per piece. Lay on paper towel to cool.

Serve with tortillas, cole slaw, and lemon slices. Top with sauce, recipe below. :)

Cream Cheese & Avocado Fish Taco Sauce: This sauce is based on a sauce we had with fish tacos at a friends house years ago in California. Ray and I still talk about that sauce anytime fish tacos are mentioned! It was so delicious, but our friends don't remember the recipe, so I tried to come up with something similar for our party. It wasn't exactly the same as the sauce we remember, but I'm really happy with how it came out. :)

Ingredients:

1 8 ounce package of cream cheese, softened
3 tablespoon sour cream
1 avocado
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon celery salt
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
1 jalapeno, seeds removed, finely chopped
juice from 1 lime

Directions: Combine all ingredients in a medium-sized bowl, finishing with the lime juice, and mix in a blender or using a hand mixer. Serve cold with fish tacos.

Corn Salad: I crave this salad all year round. I wait impatiently for corn to be in season all through the winter until finally it begins to appear in stores again, and then I make this salad first thing and eat it straight from the bowl. It is my favorite dish to make in the summertime, so if you're going to a pot-luck with me this summer, expect to see it on the menu. :)

Ingredients:

5 ears of corn
2 avocados
1 bunch of cilantro, chopped
juice from 1 lime
olive oil
salt
pepper

Directions: Grill corn until blackened. If we don't have time to grill it, we'll put it under the broiler in the oven to blacken it a bit. Let corn cool, then slice the kernels off each ear into a large bowl.
Slice avocado and add to the corn. Add cilantro, salt and pepper to taste, and drizzle with olive oil, just enough to lightly coat the salad. Squeeze the juice from a lime over the salad, and mix. Enjoy!

Fresh Citrus Margaritas: We snagged a nice bottle of tequila on major sale yesterday, just in time for our Cinco party. We used grapefruit for our citrus because we have a grapefruit tree in our yard, but you can substitute lime, or orange, peach, watermelon, or whatever your heart desires. This recipe is for a large batch, and be warned, we like our margs on the strong side. ;)

Ingredients:

8 ounces tequila
6 ounces triple sec
juice from one grapefruit
8 ounces margarita mix
ice

Directions:

Mix ingredients together in a large blender and blend on high for about a minute and a half, until the ice is the desired texture. Enjoy, and drink responsibly!

I hope you've all had a lovely weekend so far! Have a safe and happy Cinco de Mayo!

Easy & Delicious Crock-pot BBQ Chicken Sandwich

Since I quit my job a couple of months ago, I've been cooking more. I almost never had time to cook when I worked full time, so I'm trying to ease myself in to domestication with simple, inexpensive meals that don't take a lot of hands-on time. Emmett has been teething big time this week, and we're still only half-moved into our house, so I was in need of an easy recipe I could make between bouts of "mamamama"and unpacking/decorating/cleaning/working. As always, leftovers were a must.

The original recipe for BBQ pulled pork comes from Paula Deen (who shares my more-butter-is-always-better food philosophy. Ray found it months ago and tweaked it to work for BBQ chicken. We've made it for friends who just had babies, BBQ's in our back yard, and for meals to last all week for the three of us. This week we had BBQ sandwiches for dinner one night and made double-decker chicken tacos with the leftovers!

Ingredients:

2 tbsp salt
2 tbsp ground pepper
2 tbsp dark brown sugar
2 tbsp paprika
1/2 tbsp cayenne
1/2 tbsp garlic powder
4 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breast
2 cups apple juice
1 cup apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp Worcestershire

Directions:

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl to form a rub. Sprinkle dry rub all over the chicken breasts, pressing in to the chicken. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Add the wet ingredients and chicken breasts to your crock-pot and cook on high for 4-5 hours or until the chicken is tender and easy to shred.

Remove the chicken from the crock-pot and let it rest until it cools enough to touch. Use forks to shred the chicken.

For BBQ sandwiches, top with your favorite BBQ sauce and serve on hamburger buns.
For tacos, serve with beans, cheese, avocados, sour cream, and any other favorite taco toppings!

Quick, Easy and Delicious Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've been making these cookies since high school. They are the first thing I learned to bake, and in the fall my friends and I would make them after school for a quick and easy snack. We would eat the dough from our spoons and bake a few batches, then bring them outside to our friends playing basketball next door. Oh, how simple life was back then!

Each fall, when the weather begins to cool, I start craving these cookies. They are so easy to make, I can whip them up and have them warm out of the oven in half an hour. So whenever I'm craving something sweet, this recipe is the first thing I think of!

The original recipe came from the inside of the Quaker Oats box top. I memorized it years ago, and I've made a couple of minor adjustments, but the Quaker Oats recipe will always bring back years of happy memories for me.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) of unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups oats (always use the old-fashioned oats! quick oats are chopped up really small, so you don't get the same oaty texture from them)
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips (or 1 cup raisins, if you must)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Using a mixer, beat butter and sugars together in a large bowl. Add eggs and vanilla, and mix. Slowly fold in combined flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt, and beat until smooth. Add oats, then chocolate chips, and mix well.

Line baking sheets with wax paper (aluminum foil heats and bakes the cookies from the bottom up, which I hate!), and drop spoonfuls of dough 2 inches apart onto the paper. Bake 8-10 minutes. Cookies will just barely begin to brown around the edges.

And that's it! Easy as pie. Or really delicious cookies.

Avocado Toast + How To Make A Perfect Soft-Boiled Egg

I posted a photo of my favorite breakfast to Instagram recently, and got a few requests for my recipe for a perfectly cooked soft-boiled egg. So, here it is! 

Start by boiling half an inch of water in a medium-sized pot. The small amount of water will steam your eggs instead of actually boiling them. This is the key to a perfectly cooked egg, every time! You can cook one egg or 10, and they will all come out perfectly.

Set your timer to 6 minutes 30 seconds, add your eggs to the boiling water, and cover with a lid. Start timer. *If you like your yolk really runny, set your timer for 6 minutes 20 seconds. If my whites are even a tiny bit runny I lose my stomach, so I cook mine for just a little bit longer. 

Have a bowl of cold water ready.

When your timer goes off, use a spoon to pull the eggs out of the water immediately. Transfer them to your bowl of cold water to stop the cooking and cool the shells so you can peel them. 

Once the eggs have cooled slightly, peel the shells. *TIP: Add a teaspoon of baking soda to your boiling water to make shells easier to peel! 

Avocado toast:
While your eggs are boiling, toast your bread and smear on a little bit of mayonnaise. (Or a lot, if you're me...) I like to use a wheat or grain toast, but choose whichever bread is your favorite.

Cut your avocado in half, and slice longwise while still in the skin. Slice across each half a few times to cut avocado into small chunks.

Spoon out the avocado, and smear half on each slice of toast. Spread evenly.

Place one egg on each slice of avocado toast, and use a knife to break the egg. Chop the egg on top of your toast, and finish with salt and pepper.

Enjoy!

Salt River Bars

Since the first time I tasted one of these at Liberty Market in Gilbert, Arizona, I dream about them. Like, once a week. They are my all-time favorite desert, hands down! So when my mom came across a recipe online, I was thrilled to try it! 

The first time I made them, I followed this recipe. I wanted tons, so I made the recipe for a 9 x 13 pan instead of the 8 x 8. They were so good! But I knew I could make some minor changes to make them taste a little bit more like the ones at Liberty Market. 

So, here's what I did:

Ingredients:

1 box of Club crackers

1 1/2 cups butter (3 sticks)

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1 jar of real peanut butter

1 cup butterscotch chips

1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Course sea salt

Directions:

Line your 9 x 13 pan with aluminum foil so that the edges hang over the side. This will make it easy to lift the bars out of the pan when they are finished. Spray with non-stick cooking spray.

Layer the pan with Club crackers. Sprinkle 1/3 of the butterscotch chips on top, then drizzle peanut butter over the crackers. My peanut butter was really liquidy (is that a word?) so it was easy to drizzle, but you may need to heat yours up first. I wanted just a hint of peanut butter so I didn't add much, but you can add as much as you like.

Over medium high heat, melt butter and brown sugar together, stirring constantly, to form a caramel. It took me a little over 4 minutes, just like the original recipe says. You'll notice the mixture become smooth and begin to bubble when it's ready.

Pour 1/3 of the caramel over the crackers, butterscotch and peanut butter. This melts the butterscotch chips and peanut butter so you can spread them all out evenly if you want. I'm neurotic, so I did. 

Add another layer of crackers, then butterscotch, peanut butter and caramel, and then repeat one more time. Top the last layer with crackers. Aaaand I just realized I forgot to add the top layer of crackers. Whoops!

Melt your chocolate chips, pour them on top, and spread. The first time I made these I thought there was too much chocolate. I know, that's crazy! I was trying to replicate my beloved SRB's from Liberty Market, so I wanted just a little bit less. Also, the second time around I didn't scrimp on the chocolate chips. I bought the expensive ones, and it made a big difference. Sprinkle sea salt on top and pop in the fridge!

The original recipe says to take the bars out of the fridge after 20 mins to lightly cut through the bars to make it easier to cut through once they're fully cooled. I tried that the first time and the layers were still too melty, so I just waited to cut them until the end.

I made mine after dinner and left them in the fridge over night, but I'm sure they'd be ready after just a few hours. Tooootally up to you.

They aren't exactly like the ones at Liberty Market, but they're pretty darn close and who cares! They're so delicious. I brought them to a Super Bowl party and everyone raved about them! I left with an empty plate, so I guess everyone must have loved them. These will definitely be my go-to party dessert from now on!

Be sure to save the crumbs! I left mine on the counter for a few minutes, and when I came back to the kitchen, the foil was practically clean! My family is just as obsessed with these as I am.

Let me know what you think!

B.A.N.A.N.A.S

Emmett learned a new word recently y'all. "Nana" for banana all day long. Like really, all day. Every time we walk into the kitchen, or go to the grocery store, or see anything yellow, or shaped like a banana, or anytime he's hungry, or sees anyone else eating, etc etc etc. He really likes bananas.

A couple of weeks ago he wouldn't touch a banana with a ten foot pole, and then he learned to say the word and all of a sudden he'll eat 12 a day if you let him (I don't). It's like he's proud of himself for learning that word, all on his own, and he got really excited about bananas because he could express that he wanted one, all on his own.

It goes a little something like this:

"Eat, mama? Nanananananananananananananana"

"All done!"

Watching him learn is such an awesome thing.

Happy Days

Things have been pretty bleak on the blog this Summer, but life is good and happy and free these days so I want to share a little bit about that with y'all today.

First of all, the weather in AZ has started to cool. Don't go crazy, it's still in the 90's during the day but the low 90's is so so so much better than anything over 100, so I'm ecstatic. Like, really happy. We've eaten dinner outside a few times the last few days and in the afternoons I can let Emmett outside to play on the patio while I do dishes or sweep the floors. Oh my gosh he loves to be outside! It's such a relief to finally be able to let him play outside. He comes in and out through the doggy door, which he thinks is hilarious and I think is pretty strange and maybe awful now that I'm telling you about it. But that way I don't have to lose our precious AC and can keep the flies out, but he's free to come and go as he pleases.

It's win-win, since I can actually get things done, and he's happy and tantrum free. Oh glorious weather! It won't actually feel like Fall here until after Halloween, but any drop in degrees makes me a happy happy camper.

Our new schedule is wonderful so far. I can't tell you how much I love spending my afternoons at home with Emmett. I leave work at noon, pick Emmett up from "school", and we eat a quick lunch together. Then we cuddle before his nap. While he sleeps I read or clean or nap, and then we cuddle again while he wakes up. All this cuddling is just what we both need. It warms my heart and I can tell he's more peaceful and secure after spending that time together. This is what I've been missing the last year!

Things are so much more peaceful now. I am able to be truly present to him, for hours each day. I feel peaceful. Like I'm finally right where I'm supposed to be. It feels so good to give so much more of myself to my baby boy. This is the motherhood I've been missing, craving, needing. I am so grateful.

Things have been hard lately, really hard. But it's starting to turn around. I can already feel the positives that have come from the tough things our little family has had to endure. We're stronger, closer, more in love than we were. We know now that no matter what this life throws at us, we'll get through it together and come out okay. I appreciate my husband and my little Emmett more than ever, and feel so so blessed to have them.

So things are good. Beautiful, peaceful, sunny and warm (not hot). I am blessed, and so happy.

P.S. I'm trying these out for a little snack before dinner tonight. I'll let you know how they turn out!

Keepin' It Real Y'all

Linkin up with Track 8! Have y'all entered Corinna's Freshly Picked giveaway yet??

Today was a long and exhausting and rough day for all of us. By the time we got home from work, no one wanted to cook, so we threw in the towel and went out for burgers. We try really hard to make sure Emmett eats well balanced, healthy meals, but tonight, we just didn't have it in us. He shared our burgers, fries, and even some ranch dressing.

Part of me was mortified. All I could think is What must all these people think of us! Any second someone is going to walk up to our table and call us out. "How old is that baby!", I kept hearing them say in my head. "French fries?! Are you kidding!?" Instead everyone in the tables around us just oohed and aahed and chatted with him while he played with his food. The rest of me was just relieved to be sitting down to a meal as a family that we didn't have to work for. We'll give him an extra helping of veggies tomorrow!

Some days we just do what we can to survive, and we pat ourselves on the back for getting through the day.

Keepin' It Real {6}

On Saturday we all woke up from our naps (Emmett got up at 5:15 that morning after being up 3,000 times in the night so we were TIRED), piled into the car and met some friends for lunch. We ate at one of our favorite happy hour places, Z Tejas. Emmett was restless in his high chair while we waited for our food, so we let him get down and walk around a little bit. Yes, I said walk! He's walking now!

He kept going over to the table next to us to smile and wave at the nice man sitting at the end of the booth. It was really sweet and fun to watch him making friends! After we ate while we waited for our check I let Emmett down to walk some more. He walked straight over to the next table, smiled and waved, and then laid his little guacamole-covered hand right down on that nice man's white shorts...

Here he is outside on the bench, where I took him directly after washing him off in the bathroom:

Keepin' It Real {5} + Our Weekend

 I am linking up with Mary Beth over at Annapolis & Company today for her weekly Our Weekend link up!

My kid hates Sundays. And afternoons. But especially Sundays.

He always has. Every Sunday, our sweet baby boy turns into a fussy, clingy mess. He only wants to be held. He wants to nurse all day. He won't nap. Ray used to have friends over on Sundays to watch football games. Once we had Emmett Ray's friends stopped coming. They couldn't hear the game for all the crying.

Every weekend we're optimistic. We make plans to do fun things, we invite friends over, we try to sit down and make a weekly meal plan. But then Emmett skips his second nap, which is quickly becoming obsolete, and all hell breaks loose. It's all we can do to survive until dinner time.

It's not all bad though. There are a few giggles and hugs and smiles here and there, mostly when we bribe the boy with watermelon, and we start to think things are turning around. But then he throws his watermelon rind in my face and yells "up up up" and then he's inconsolable again.

We take trips to the grocery store just to get out of the house and kill time. The whole time we're out he's happy and content and even quiet. But the moment we set foot in our house again, he's miserable. I wonder if he's just over being in the house after a long week, but we've spent a lot of time out of the house the last few days, so I'm not sure if that's it. Maybe we'll never figure it out.

All I know is, we have to keep being optimistic. Keep hoping the next Sunday will be better. Who knows, maybe this weekend will be the best one yet!

So Emmett, a little less of this:

And a little more of this, mmkay:

Popsicles (Of The Homemade Variety)

Because Emmett's birthday falls in the Summer, and we live in Arizona, and we're in the middle of the world's hottest heat wave, I thought it would be fun (read: necessary) to serve popsicles at his party. And as I am super crafty and really know my way around the kitchen and everything I do is Pinterest-worthy, I decided to make my own. So you know, go ahead with the praise.

I started with Pinterest, of course. I found a few recipes that looked good, bought this adorable popsicle kit from Crate & Barrel (there are cheaper kits, but I'm a sucker for everything C&B), and filled my fridge with fruit and juice.

I made a few different kinds, starting with an easy one- lemonade layered with strawberry lemonade with tiny bits of strawberries. Pretty hard to mess up that recipe.

Then I did this awesome recipe for chili lime watermelon popsicles, minus the chili. These might have been my favorite! So yum and I'm a sucker for watermelon with sea salt. I also made these, and my mom made some really similar to these but miniature for the kiddos.

But the biggest hit were these watermelon mojito popsicles my mom made. My mom loves a good mojito, so when she got to town a few days before Emmett's party, she made a batch of mojitos with plenty extra to freeze for popsicles. So yum!

All in all the popsicles were a hit, and a great way to keep everyone cool in the 118 degree weather!