Fiesta Food and R. Kelly for MDW

It's Memorial Day Weekend. This used to mean insane dieting and exercise for Vegas. I had a phase. No judgement...

Now it means hanging by the pool with good friends and firing up the BBQ. This year, I decided to do Mexican. I went to the specialty Latin market down the street and bought ingredients for a fiesta feast! Here's was I made:

Rainbow salad
Homemade guacamole
Carne asada tacos
El pasto tacos

Rainbow Salad:
1/2 purple cabbage sliced very fine
2 tomatoes, diced
1/3 bunch of cilantro
1 orange bell pepper, diced
1 yellow bell pepper, diced
1/2 medium sized jicama, diced (my absolutely favorite!)
10 radishes, diced
1/2 red onion, diced
Rinsed black beans

Directions: Cut, slice and dice everything and make it together.

This salad is so incredibly filling and so full of super amazing flavor. I don't care much for dressing of any kind (except the few I make myself - saving that for another post) so I topped this giant rainbow with a scoop of homemade guacamole and lime.

I hate to give away my guacamole recipe, but I feel like I owe it to the world. It's just too good to keep from people.

Mama's Homemade Guac
5 avocados, mashed
2 tomatoes
4-5 closed of garlic, diced
2 spicy jalapeños
1/3 bunch of cilantro
1 whole shallot
3 limes, juiced
salt

Directions:
1. Cut avocados in half, slice and scoop into a bowl. Mash it until it's mostly smooth with a few chunks left throughout.
2. Diced tomatoes and shallot. Mix in.
3. Diced garlic and jalapeños. Mix in. Be careful not to touch your face after... Lesson I learned the hard way.
4. Dice cilantro. Mix it in.
5. Juices your lime and add salt. I think salt is a preference. I personally like it on the plainer side, but I know I'm the minority. So add what you'd like.

Mix all of this madness together and let it sit for a few hours. This is the key. Give all of those magical flavors an opportunity to work together. This guacamole is a huge crowd pleaser. Great for BBQ's and get togethers. Try it. Please. It's amazing.

For the tacos, we did carne and el pastor on the BBQ. I don't like pork, and I'm trying to eat less red meat, so this was not on my personal menu. I forced the boys to be healthy though and bought La Tortilla Factory Whole Wheat Low Carb Tortillas. So bomb. I usually have them with my eggs whites in the morning. 80 calories, 18g carbohydrates, 12g FIBER! and 8g protein. And they taste good. WHAT?! Yeah...

Last night I went out dancing with my friends for their birthday. I had such a blasty blast! The DJ played all the best jams! Nelly, T-Pain, R. Kelly. I was just a dancing queen! My feet are killing me. But well worth it. Happy birthday Kate and Lynds. I love you babes.

I did a class with Linda yesterday and I am very sore. It's certainly going to take me a bit to get back into my groove, but I'm feeling good about it. One day, one meal, on hour at a time.

Happy holiday weekend everyone. Be safe.

SM

Nice to re-meet you

Time for a makeover. And a re-introduction.

Hi, I'm Erin and I'm 27 years old.

I work in advertising. It's nutty. I really like it though. And I'm pretty good at it. Go figure...

This blog used to be about food. All about food. And as great as food is, there's a lot more to life to share about than what kind of exercise to do and what you ate for the day. This is still a huge part of my life and forever will be. But now life is a little fuller and a bit more figured out, so allow me to share.

I graduated from college in 2013. Without a clue what to do, I took the first job I could land. Turns out it was in advertising and well, the rest is history. That same year, I met the love of my life. His name is Joe. I call him Bear. Awwww....

I moved to Santa Monica right after I graduated. Joe and I lived there for a few years, being young and stupid, and partying our young bodies away. We had some really great years in that apartment on Stanford Street. I miss the smell of the salty Santa Monica air and the little wine shop across the street. Ah, good times.

Last year I started working at Saatchi & Saatchi and Joe and I made our way into true adulthood. We bought a house in Sherman Oaks and began to create out little nest. Super cool, right? Yeah, super cool.

Here's a few of my favorite things:

1. Cooking dinner with my Bear
2. Pinot noir
3. Blue-grass country music
4. Persian food. So down! with tadig.
5. French bulldogs
6. The sound of an acoustic guitar
7. Lifting weights
8. Yoga
9. French bulldogs
10. French bulldog puppies
11. When Joe makes me laugh after a bad day. He has this way of making the funniest jokes right before bed. It's the best way to go to end the day. Sometimes I'm laughing so hard I cry. And right before I go to sleep...so awesome.
12. My mom. She's cool. 

So as you can see, I'm still a pretty simple girl. Just a few more layers to the onion. So back to the whole food thing...

I weight 158 pounds. I would really like to weigh 140 pounds. So I'm going to use this blog as a place where I can not only write about what's happening in my seemingly uneventful life, but also keep an account of my journey to lose 18 pounds. Its been a very, very long time since I've had to lose weight like this. So it's going to come with a learning curve, which I'm (hoping) I'm prepared for. Finger crossed.

Blog world, it's nice to re-meet you.

SM