quinn's place

holaaaaa mis amigos!

its cinco de mayo. i just love this day mucho.

i know its become a crazy americanized holiday these days, but i just like to think of it as a celebration of how wonderful mexican food is. haha. gooooooo mehicoooo.

i felt the need to do something else fun for my cinco de mayo spread again since i went a bit kooky for it last year, too.

i made homemade tortillas, chimichurri (not very mexican, but oh so good on tacos), mango grapefruit salsa, various taco combinations, black bean & white cheddar taquitos, guacamole, and grilled corn with white cheez, cilantro, lime & cayenne. OLÉ!!

the black bean and sharp white chedda taquitos are just simple little things that i don't feel require their own blog post... here's how i made them:

first ya take the homemade tortilla. ya stick the smashed black beans on the tort. THEN, ya sprinkle the cheese.

pro tip: use some smashed beans on the very edge as a sort of glue to hold the tortilla in rolled up position. slowly place each taquito in 1/2 inch of medium-high heated vegetable oil in a skillet. let brown, and flip once to fry and brown the other side. remove and let drain on paper towel covered cooling rack.

THEN you scarf. aah the sandlot. how i love thee and all your nostalgia. and s'mores. summer is coming!!!!!!!!

ps. i had my first s'more of the year this week. thats how you really know summer is nigh. also have you ever made a s'more with the chocolate graham crackers?? scrumptious!

i filled the inside with just beans and cheese because i prefer toppings (like salsa, greek yogurt or sour cream, guac, etc.) to be cold on top. btw, we exclusively use plain greek yogurt as our sour cream agent anymore. i like the thick texture and tart creamyness. and plain greek yog is much more versatile to have around anyway.

i brought my mango grapefruit salsa to our cinco de mayo potluck at work today. here's some feedback that i got:

"this would be good on a pork chop!"

"your salsa is amazing!"

"this salsa is just the perfect refreshing summer salsa. and not too spicy!"

why thanks, people! i would agree with pete on the bitterness of the grapefruit now that i've eaten it on two separate occasions. be sure to get a nice ripe SWEET pink grapefruit for it.

grilled corn is a great thing to have around for tacos, in salads, with everyyyyythinggg during the summer :) we grill up a bunch of ears, cut it off the cob and store in the fridge to have on hand for all the eats.

normally i shy far far from taking any food photos in bright uneven sunlight like so ^^^ but for cinco i make exception! the sun is shining and the guac is flowing!

lalalala la bambaaa. livin la vida locaaaaaa. adios!

pete and i jetted off to mexico for a week at the end of january. we stayed in cabo san lucas at the pueblo bonito rosé resort. we had a lot of fun in the sunnnn. we'd hang by the beach all day and have endless coronas con limón y margaritas y chips y guac. too many of all those things, actually. but we enjoyed ourselves.

here are a bunch of photos from our week. all from my iphone 6. and some silly bonus photos from our crappy disposable waterproof camera.

many thanks to my parentals for coordinating our week at pueblo bonito via their timeshare :)

we were besties with all the servers. our favs: ricardo, davíd, javier, armando, jerry, y hector. thanks for tromping through the sand to deliver us so many delightful eats and drinks everyday, fellas :)

pete and i are HUGE fans of locals sandals. best drug store sandals in the world haha. you get them in hawaii, though. both times we've gone to hawaii together, we buy em all up! they are freakishly comfortable once you wear them in; we've walked miles and miles in these babies. i love em.

ooooooo our heart swan towels looked all romantiq when the sun came up. actually, i took a towel folding class by the pool one morning, haha. because, why not? i learned how to make elephants, swans, turtles, and a basket!

vacation shirt pete, just doin what he do.

yayayayy for vacations in january, the monday of months.

and some really blurry underwater camera photos:

(we bought the camera the day after we had gone snorkeling.....why?! i dont know. the day we snorkeled, it was with two big sea lions and the hugest school of fish i ever did see! i thought it was a bigass boulder, but it was a humongous school of fish. sea lions were swimming by us and swimming through the fish and playing around. it was so cute. then i swam through a patch of tiny jelly fish that i didn't even see at all, and my skin started burning all over. i had a bunch of stings on my arm and leg that turned into rashes. nobody peed on me, if you were wondering. i just let it do its thing and it was fine the next day. we saw a bunch of pretty colored fishes, too, by the way!)