Summer salsa

We are heading to friends' cottage this weekend for an annual triathalon weekend, and we are on tap for Sunday morning breakfast. Since peaches are so delicious right now, I am going to serve cheese scones, scrambled eggs, and peameal with this peach salsa.

The recipe is super easy and very flexible. I combined peaches, avocado, onion, tomatoes and cilantro, then added a splash of olive oil and red wine vinegar. Peaches can be replaced with mango or a citrus fruit if you'd prefer, and you can add corn if you have some left over from last night's dinner.

This is also delicious with fish and adds a gorgeous flash of colour - tonight we are having it with salmon! Yum!

When is a dessert really dessert?

As I blogged about here, my husband and I are in the midst of a very competitive health competition. We earn points for exercise, and lose points for 'food infactions' like eating desserts, white flour, and refined sugar.

I was tickled pink when my friend Erin catered to our restrictions by making us faux ice cream this weekend while we were visting her parents' abode in Flesherton, Ontario. The concoction has no sugar or artificial sweetener, and it is yum!

Directions
- Slice and freeze a few bananas
- Once bananas are frozen add a spash of milk, a few scoops of plain yogurt, a teaspoon of cocoa powder, a few spoons of all-natural peanut butter, and a teaspoon of vanilla.
- Blend it all together and stick it back in the freezer for 30 minutes or so before serving.

Enjoy it guilt free!!

When life throws you lemons...

Ok, life hasn't thrown me any lemons as of late. I've had an amazing summer with my family, and peaches and corn are in season....things couldn't get much better!

Nonetheless, I fell for this vintage pitcher at Goodwill. "Clear tags" were on sale, so this was marked down to $.75. As part of Fatty Get Skinny (blogged about here) we are drinking a lot more water. I keep this adorable pitcher on the counter with a glass and sip away all day. I like that it is shaped a bit like a beaker. It reminds me of grade 8 Junior Chemistry class.

Green

I am slowing adding hits of intensely saturated apple green to our bedroom. It is a colour that makes me happy, and it also happens to be the 'theme' colour from our wedding, now 5 years ago.

Last night I scooped up the green urn for $7.07 at my local Goodwill. It has a beautiful 'crackled' surface up close, and I love the way it brings out the green in the painting. .....which was another good deal!!! I gave it to my husband last year (our 4th anniversary), with the trees in the painting referencing the trees in Khalil Gibran's poem 'The Prophet', which was read at our wedding (a stretch, maybe, but I really liked the painting!).

I picked up the painting for a song at my local framing store. Someone had dropped it off for framing 7 years earlier and never picked it up!

Is there anything better?

With my retun for work imminent and the rain barreling down, I am pining for some of those special summer moments. In our family this means a game of lantern-lit Scrabble at the cottage. My best word of the summer was quivers, on a triple word score, no less.

I am sorry that I have been bad about blogging lately. Since getting back from our vacation I've been busy trying to get organized for my return to work, and am trying to revel in the time with my little man....lots of snuggles, kisses, and bike rides!

Label maker

My mother is even more of an organizational freak than me.

So last Christmas, I bought her a label maker - the Brother PTouch. It's amazing. At the cabin last week we labeled everything in sight. It is particularly good in a linen closet, and to label electronics and cords (I did my camera, IPad, Blackberry, etc.). Now I'm walking around my house thinking about all things I'd label if I had my very own label maker!

Three weeks by the water

I've been away for three weeks on a mat leave swan song by the water. It was a wonderful trip that I will not soon forget. Here's a brief overview of what we got up to....

I took the two kids to Vancouver for a week to visit my parents. We had incredible weather and spent lots of time at the beach, Granville Island, and local public pools.

Next we headed to my parents' cabin which is half way between Vancouver and Calgary on Shuswap Lake in the Okanagan. It's a charming little cabin lit by kerosene lamps and decorated with macromae owls and hooked rugs (I'll post some pictures of the kitch factor in another post!).

Finally, we headed to Saskatchewan for a family reunion. 115 of us enjoyed loads of singing, celebrating, hearty meals, and catching up about each other's lives over the last 3 years.