Recipes: A Mexican Feast!

It's a rainy day in the lower mainland today, and this usually means that if I'm not at work, I'm bored. So, usually I try to find something to do, and today it was making an elaborate mexican dinner!

I actually love spicy food, but it usually doesn't sit right with me (perhaps because a lot of it is quite greasy) but I tend to avoid it. I have a cookbook at home that I bought that I have yet to cook anything out of, so I decided that today would be a good day to read it, find some yummy recipes and, because I can't leave anything alone, change the recipes and make them my own! There were a whole bunch of awesome mexican recipes in there, so I thought I would give them a go and a have a yummy theme dinner!

I made a spicy black bean dip and guacamole served with warm chips, and shrimp and/or chicken fajitas!

Let me start with the Black Bean Dip, because it was what I was most weary of, but turned out SOO yummy. I've never really had anything like it, and I love it! We ate so fast I didn't get many pictures, but man was it delicious!

Black Bean Dip

1 19oz can of Black Beans; drained and rinsed thoroughly. 
4 cloves of garlic; minced to a paste
2 tablespoons of light cream cheese
1 tsp lime juice
1 tsp white vinegar
2 teaspoons of chili powder
1/4-1/2 tsp of Chipotle chili powder.*

*use to taste really, I used 1/4 tsp and it was plenty, but you might like more!

Combine everything in a food processor, mix until combines and has a dip like consistency (it's pretty easy to tell when all the beans are mashed up!) Put all the dip into a microwave safe dish, cover and heat 3-5 minutes, or until warm to your liking. Stir and serve with tortilla chips!

It is delicious, healthy and spicy! Definitely worth giving a try!

Some black bean dip and guacamole!

Secondly I made Guacamole, which I have also never made before, but it was so easy I should always just make it myself.

Guacamole Dip

2 avocados
1 clove of garlic, mashed to a paste
1/4 cup onion (I used yellow)
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp fresh chopped cilantro
dash of chipotle powder (could use regular chili powder instead!)

Mash avocado in a mixing bowl (or I mixed mine in the food processor), add additional ingredients, mix until well combined. Serve with tortilla chips!

And lastly, for the main course, I made orange and lime marinated shrimp and chicken fajitas!

Orange and Lime Marinade (for chicken or fish)

1/3 cup Orange Juice
1/3 cup Lime Juice
3 cloves minced garlic
3 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
1 tbs olive oil
dash of chili powder

Marinate chicken (if using chicken) for 30 mins+, if using shrimp or fish only allow to marinate for a maximum of 20 minutes.

Grill or panfry chicken until tender (I chopped mine into bite sized pieces pre-marinade, so mine didn't take too long to cook) and grill or pan fry shrimp 2-3 minutes until cooked.

Served with cooked peppers and onions, cheese, any of the dips listed above, sour cream or anything else you love with fajitas. Heat up tortillas until warm, serve and enjoy!

Everything was delicious and totally worth the effort of making it all myself, and I will definitely be showcasing my black bean dip and guacamole at the next gathering that I can! =)

Blog, and be happy!

Kyleigh.

Review: My New Blender!

So I've wanted a personal blender for a long time... and while they aren't very expensive I just struggled with the thought of having two blenders at my house because that just seemed ridiculous!

However, the blender we have at my house is like a high powered beast of a blender. Seriously, it might as well be industrial with how loud and crazy it is. It's not exactly the best early morning blender, unless you want to wake up the whole neighbourhood! Also, I loved the thought of a personal blender being so much easier to clean and maintain since you blend the smoothie into the to-go bottle! It makes small, one person portions too, so there is much less waste than using a full sized blender. (I always seem to make enough smoothie for 4 people instead of just me!)

Since it was my birthday this past weekend, I decided that now was a good time while I have a few extra dollars in my pocket to go a buy the blender I always eye at various stores.

I did quite a bit of research on personal blenders because many of them have the blades built in to the bottom of the to-go mug. This was something that bothered me a little bit, and something that I think a lot of people don't think about! It kind of made me feel a little unsafe thinking that if I blended something and the blade broke inside the smoothie that I wouldn't know until the smoothie was finished! So, I set out to find a removable blade blender... and believe me when I say those things are NOT easy to find.

I looked all over the place at different blenders, and there are quite a few companies that make personal blenders. From Hamilton Beach all the way to the Magic Bullet, there are usually sections in the appliance area of a store dedicated to small blenders, however there was always one of two things:

1. The blade was built into the bottom of the mug, or
2. It was damn expensive!

I don't know about you, but I don't want to spend 99$ on a blender that I will literally use only for early morning and post work out smoothies! I could buy a whole new big blender for that much, so it just wasn't reasonable or necessary to spend that much on a mini blender.

Finally I saw the blender I ended up getting yesterday. The Oster MyBlend blender.

This is actually the perfect blender. It's compact, easy to use and easy on the wallet at only 34.99$, which includes the 600ml sports-style bottle. It's pretty high powered for being so little, and gets everything blended up in no time.  It's also great because they sell the bottles on the side in various colours, so the family can each have their own smoothie bottle!

I used it this morning for the first time and it was awesome. Thus far, I give it 5 stars! =)

So, if you need a mini blender, I'd definitely suggest this one!

Healthy smoothies to go for the win!


Blog, and be happy.

Kyleigh.

A weekend update!

Well I have just been a super neglectful blogger lately. It's not that I haven't had things to blog about but for some reason I just haven't had time to really sit down and write it out! I've been pretty stressed out lately, so I guess blogging hasn't really been on my mind. 

However, no matter how bad things get, good things still happen like this past weekend for example! We went to whistler and had a wonderful time celebrating birthdays and partying our faces off! It was so much fun spending time with great friends and just letting loose! 

We also stopped off at the Brittania mine museum on our way home from whistler on Sunday. It was super cool, I hadn't been there since I was like 8, and Alex never had so we had lots of fun exploring the mine! 

So, this week is a week of celebration. I'm going to de-stress, relax and celebrate MY life, because I was born 22 years ago this coming Saturday! If nothing else, I'm glad to be alive in this beautiful place and enjoying my friends and family!

I hope you all have a wonderful week, enjoy it and celebrate a little for me! :) 

Blog and be happy, 

Kyleigh