FREE PRINTABLE | FAST & FURIOUS 6 - DWAYNE JOHNSON SPEAKS ONLY TRUTH

Fast & Furious 6. Things just got real in here. The first thing Warren and I did when we got back from Morocco Monday night was get violently ill (I should say that was the first thing I did). The second thing we did was immerse ourselves back into American culture the only way we knew how: Fast 6. It beckoned like a beacon of steroid packing light. And it was so very right.

My favorite film genre is lodged somewhere between Ridiculous and Ridonculous, which is why action movies sit at the tippy-top of my movie-loving pyramid. It all stems from a childhood replete with Robocob, Rambo, and Terminator, all recorded off the TV and watched ad infinitum until the VHS tapes ran ragged.

Fast 6 had fast cars, fast fists, and fast quips--in short, it was glorious. Everything from the biceps that bulged larger than Warren's face and the gravity-defying leaps across bridges went against the laws of nature and for that I give it five impossible thumbs up. Fast 7, here we come!

I can't wait to share photos from our nomadic adventures with you, dear reader, and I hope that you'll indulge me, just as you indulged this ridiculous post about cars, biceps, and Dwayne Johnson. Sometimes it just has to be done.

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READY IN 20: FROZEN STRAWBERRY DAIQUIRI PIE

 

1. Sweetened Condensed Milk 2. Strawberry Daiquiri Frozen Concentrate 3. Cool Whip

I would absolutely eat a slice of this delicious frozen pie in lieu of dinner. If you're looking for a quick, crowd-pleasing dessert, look no further. Definitely play around with different frozen concentrate flavors. We've had great success with frozen strawberry lemonade and are excited to try pina colada, maybe with some strained crushed pineapple mixed in to boot!

Warren is the pie expert in our house. While I make this pie using store bought graham cracker crust, he says if you want to take it to the next level, make a homemade crust out of vanilla wafers (his preferred crust recipe below). He is completely right, of course, but if you're short on time, the store bought does just fine. Get ready to be idolized by the masses.

FROZEN STRAWBERRY DAIQUIRI PIE

• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 can frozen strawberry daiquiri concentrate*
• 1 tub of Cool Whip
• graham cracker or vanilla wafer crust

Mix the first three ingredients together. Pour into the pie crust. Freeze until set. If you're feeling fancy, top with a few swirls of whipped cream and fresh strawberries but there really is no need. This pie does just fine on its own.

VANILLA WAFER CRUST
From the Pie & Pastry Bible**

• 1 1/2 cups vanilla wafers, crushed
• pinch of salt
• 5 tablespoons of butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350. Crush vanilla wafers by hand or in a blender. Or, if you're super cool like us, your awesome Ninja! Seriously, this is hands down the best kitchen investment we have made. Dump crumbs into a greased pie pan. Pour in butter and mix with your fingers, patting it into the shape of a crust. Bake for five minutes. Cool completely before adding filling.

*We can only find strawberry daiquiri concentrate at Kroger. Hopefully that saves you from our usual wild goose chase in pursuit of this frozen goodness.

**Everything Warren has made from this book is golden. Particularly, apple turnovers. The cream cheese crust is so flaky you will swoon.

Finally, I am curious to hear about your go-to desserts. I am always on the prowl for a good treat.

Got a few minutes? Take a look at some other recipes in the Ready in 20 series, such as Easy Chinese Take Out-Style Roasted Green Beans and Shrimp.

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DOG-EARED PAGES | CAROLYN HOLDERNESS ON UNBROKEN BY LAURA HILLENBRAND

Carolyn Holderness is one of the most down-to-earth women that I know. We met each other our freshmen year of college and have since kept in touch. I was delighted to reunite with her and her lovely family in Boston this January. Even though five years had passed since we last saw each other, we picked up right where we left off. Gotta love friendships like that. Her experience reading Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand gives me hope on reading books I do not immediately fall in love with. She stuck this one out and was richly rewarded.

Let me start with a seemingly irrelevant tangent and confession: there is no doubt that I was the worst qualifying member the Provo Make Your Own Greeting Card club ever had. The rules of the club were simple: make ten homemade cards once a month to exchange with friends. The first month, my husband stayed up for hours the night before the exchange and made ten homemade cards for me.  The next month, I bought the most-homemade-looking box of cards I could find from the store and distributed those after carefully making sure there were no bar codes or any other clues that gave away my lack of creativity.  So three years later, when I joined a local book club in the Boston area, I set a goal to be a better club member.  It was my failure that motivated me to read.

The first book we read was Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. I checked out the book and delved into the story. My first impression was that I couldn’t possibly enjoy the book.  How could I when I didn’t relate to the main character, and when I thought he had no redeeming qualities?  I looked around my apartment and thought of at least ten things that would be a better use of my time. I continued to read, though, and I’m so glad I did. I ended up looking forward to my children’s bedtime so that I could curl up on the couch and read a few chapters.  By the time I finished the book it was on my list of favorites. Louis Zamperini inspires readers by his refusal to surrender to his hopeless circumstances.

Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man's soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it.

As I read, I found myself learning right along with Louis Zamperini and rediscovering that:

What God asks of men is faith. His invisibility is the truest test of that faith. To know who sees him, God makes himself unseen.

When I finished the book, I wanted to know more about Louis, more about World War II, and more about myself. I wanted to know more about the human mind and the capabilities we have.  I Googled Louis Zamperini and became emotional when I watched a recent video of an interview with him. As it turns out, I am grateful for my initial failure because it pushed me to discover an inspirational book that left me with a new perspective.

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If you are interested in writing a guest post about your favorite book for Dog-Eared Pages, please email me at amyleescott [at] gmail [dot] com. I would love to share!

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ANNIVERSARY RACK OF LAMB WITH WHITE BEANS AND ROSEMARY

dreamy wedding photography by meg ruth photo

Three years ago today Warren and I gathered with our dearest friends and family and were wed in Washington, D.C. Last year we spent our anniversary tooling around on our new bikes and going to an Andrew Bird concert. The year before that, we roamed across South Korea and visited orphanages, including Kyeong Dong Children's Home, where I lived for three months before being adopted. And yes, these are kids from Kyeong Dong absolutely killing it Gangam style in glorious bedazzled dance outfits.

This year we are MoROCK'n it by riding camels through the Sahara desert and exploring the wonders of Marrakesh. Jason Bourne would be proud. To celebrate our three year anniversary and to prepare for our Moroccan adventure, we made a rack of lamb all fragrant with rosemary and lemons and simmered in a tomato white bean sauce. 

Having never made lamb before, I was kind of intimidated. But it turns out lamb benefits from very little fuss. Just a few minutes to sear in a hot pan and a few more to finish in the oven. To make life even easier, we bought our rack of lamb already frenched (which is a fancy way of saying the butcher scraped the bone tips clean). Rack o' lamb is not cheap but it is well worth it for a special dinner  for two. We bought this during the after Easter sales and froze it for later use. Worked like a charm.    

RACK OF LAMB WITH WHITE BEANS AND ROSEMARY

Adapted from Meijer's Mealbox

• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• freshly ground pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary chopped
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 1 small onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 14.5 oz. can fire roasted tomatoes, with liquid
• 1 14.5 oz. can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed (Great Northern work too)
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 lemon, quartered
• 1 sprig of fresh rosemary

2-3 hours before you want to eat, set the lamb on the counter and bring to room temperature. Right before cooking, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Salt and pepper the lamb. Heat olive oil in a large non-stick, oven-safe pan on high. Sear the lamb for about two minutes per side, or until a nice golden crust forms. Set the lamb aside. Sprinkle with lemon zest, dried oregano, and rosemary. Rub the herbs in so they're evenly dispersed across the meat.

In the same hot pan you seared the lamb in, add the chicken stock and scrape all the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the onion and garlic. Cook for about five minutes. Add the tomatoes, cannellini beans, tomato paste, lemon, and rosemary sprig. Bring to a simmer and add the lamb back to the pan.

Put the pan in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Use a meat thermometer to check at about 15 minutes. We prefer lamb medium rare (140 F). When the meat is done, let it rest for 10 minutes. Carve the lamb into individual pieces and serve over the white bean broth. And that's how it's done. 

photos by meg ruth

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Need more meat in your life? Please, please, please try roasting your own chicken. For instance, the roast chicken love child of Thomas Keller and Ina Garten. It is awesome. As are the slow cooker carnitas.

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MOROCCO MONDAYS | MOROCK'N IT

image by kizie

Yes, friends, Warren and I are boarding a plane heading to Morocco. In a moment of sheer brilliance I created a verb phrase for our upcoming travel adventures: MoROCK'n It. It is the perfect response to virtually any question. Observe:

Q: What are you doing for your summer vacation?

A: Not much, just MoROCK'n It so hard you'll cry.

Q: Can I put you on hold for the zillionth time?

A: Why not, I'll be MoROCK'n It while you'll still be sitting in your sad, soul-crushing cubicle.

Q: Why can't you just be normal?

A: Don't know, don't care because I be MoROCK'n It, yo.

Etc.

Which leads me to the one and only question MoROCK'n It cannot answer: How are there not a million T-shirts with this phrase on it already? While I didn't have time to create matching freezer paper MoROCK'n IT shirts in honor of our trip you can bet your bottom dollar that I have chanted it an infinite amount of times while doing a brilliant little jig--much to Warren's utter chagrin.

Here's how we envision the whole Morocco trip going down--well, after attending Lia and Heath's lovely wedding in Brooklyn, Warren's conference in Zaragoza, Spain, and every Gaudi structure in Barcelona, which just happens to be one of my favorite cities in the entire world:

Let me just say that we will be camel trekking through the Sahara Desert at some point during all that. Awesome, right? 

And all of this is to say that things might get a little quite around Club Narwhal. But don't you worry, there will still be amazing Dog-Earred Pages recommendations and perhaps a few recipes sprinkled in to tide you over. I cannot wait to share our adventures with you when we return!

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DOG-EARED PAGES | TESS HOOPES ON POPE JOAN BY DONNA WOOLFOLK CROSS

Tess and I have known each other for the better part of a decade. As spry young college freshmen, we bonded over the very specific and very adorable way Jordan Catalano leaned against things, our mutual obsession with Coldplay, and our adoration of books of all kinds. Tess is the best kind of person and the loveliest of friends--she definitely makes for an excellent addition to this virtual book club. It is an honor to present her thoughts on Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross.

I must be the luckiest woman alive, especially when it comes to book groups. The opportunity as a stay-at-home mom to get out once a month kid-free and talk about a book with other women of various backgrounds is such a highlight that recharges my sanity. I am reminded that I am still capable of uninterrupted adult conversation and I get exposure to books I would never otherwise pick up. Good food is always a bonus, too.

That being said, my book group has not yet read my new favorite book. In the course of our discussions though, the historical fiction book, Pope Joan, was mentioned. And, 8 months later, I got around to checking it out. It was totally worth it.

The introduction of Pope Joan is right up my alley. The beautifully exquisite and intense moment a baby is born: Joan. This birth story is particularly unique. It's set in the 9th century and gives a glimpse into a society I find crazy and fascinating. The historical aspect of this book is spot on, rich with details so you feel like you are there.

The fiction part of the book was a pleasant surprise: a rich and beautiful love story that I found so moving. With lines like, “At last she had come to accept what she had fought so long to deny—[he] was part of her, was her in some unfathomable way she could neither explain, nor deny. They were twin souls, linked inextricably and forever, two halves of one perfect whole that would never again be complete without both,” how could you not want to find/embrace your own twin soul?

I want to give my two daughters good examples of strong women and Joan is a perfect example. She is an intelligent girl stuck in a seemingly unchangeable situation that would inhibit her true passion. She ultimately disguises herself as a boy to get more educated and ends up becoming the Pope of the Catholic church. Is it a true story? Maybe.

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If you are interested in writing a guest post about your favorite book for Dog-Eared Pages, please email me at amyleescott [at] gmail [dot] com. I would love to share!

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BAKED BANANA NUTELLA OR SPECULOOS COOKIE BUTTER WONTON ROLLS

One bite of the melty Nutella mingling with gooey baked banana and I know why I will never be able to swear off sugar for life. Wrap all that goodness in a crispy wonton shell rolled in warm butter and cinnamon sugar and let's just say that these bad boys won't stick around for long.  

This is the best kind of dessert--simple, elegant, and comforting. Top the warm rolls with a scoop of creamy vanilla ice cream sprinkled with even more cinnamon sugar and it's basically texture paradise--warm with cool, spicy with sweet.

To take it to the next level, try using cookie butter in place of Nutella. We use Trader Joe's Speculoos Cookie Butter and it is divine on pretty much anything. But in these rolls, the cookie butter is absolutely out of this world. I confess: I might have a minor obsession with cookie butter. I mean, 3 ingredient Cookie Butter Lacy Thins? Why are they so incredibly easy to make? Evil. And amazing. 

BAKED BANANA NUTELLA OR COOKIE BUTTER WONTON ROLLS
Adapted from Six Sisters Stuff

• 2 bananas
• 6 tablespoons nutella
• 6 tablespoons cookie butter
• 4 wonton wrappers
• 1 tablespoon melted butter
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons white sugar

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Peel a banana and slice from top to bottom. Stuff the banana with 3 tablespoons of Nutella. Slice the stuffed banana in half. Lay a wonton wrapper flat on the counter so it looks like a diamond. Smear the rest of the Nutella down the middle of the wonton wrapper. Place one half of the stuffed banana on the Nutella. 

Wrap the wonton like a burrito by pulling the left side of the diamond towards the right side. Tuck the top and bottom of the diamond down. Then pull the right side of the diamond towards the left side. You should have a little log. Repeat with the rest of the bananas, stuffing with either more Nutella or cookie butter, depending on your preference.

Bake the wontons on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper for 12-15 minutes, until light brown. Broil for an additional minute to get extra crispy (keep a close eye). Roll the baked rolls in the melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Serve with vanilla icecream also sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

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Need more of a sugar rush? You can't go wrong with Nutella Stuffed Brown Butter Double Chocolate Chip Cookies!

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MICHIGAN MONDAYS | TAYLOR SWIFT AT FORD FIELD

So, this happened. Just chilling with Taylor Swift and 50,000 of her biggest fans at Ford Field. No biggie. 

PSYCH!!!!!! I was so pumped the entire day I could not stop breaking out into random, maniacal laughter. Luckily I was not alone. Downtown Detroit abounded with screeching girls dressed to the nines, all hoping to score a spot at the T-Party--the coveted after party for hardcore fans to meet Taylor and the band. There's pizza and foosball and squeals and tween weeping. I loved the ladies below and really hope they made it to the T-Party. Also, I was so not this cute when I was in middle school. Jealous.

 

When we finally made it into the bowels of Ford Field, some tween guy was on stage dancing with his crew. His name was Austin Mahone. He is apparently famous? The squeals were unbelievable. He was followed by Ed Sheeran of whom I know nothing except that he is British and sings a popular song called "The A-Team" and his mere presence incites a universe of squeals. We had to wait for a long time after his set. But before the natives got too restless, the stage began to transform into something worthy of calling itself the Red Tour, which had to be, in Taylor's words, "nothing like any other tour before." Amen.

 And then Tay's intro music began and the jumbotrons started flashing her name. And then:

Silhouette!!! And singing!!! And screaming!!!!!! Oh, how we screamed. Taylor knows drama. She held that crowd of 50,000 in the palm of her hand. She was like the bestie we all dream of having, dishing and preening and giggling like we were all at the best sleep over in the history of sleep overs. 

 Also, she had no fewer than a dozen costume changes. She did crazy amazing things like dissappear through a trap door wearing shorts and then reappear a second later standing at the top of her elegant stairway set wearing a sequined ball gown. She, along with a bunch of dancers/bodyguards, walked straight down the middle of the field, amidst hoards of fans, and ended up on a smaller stage poised at the very back of the arena, just to play for the screaming girls sitting in the nosebleed section. She wore a bedazzled top hat and equally bedazzled circus coat.

The finale was everything a circus dream could hope for: masquerade-esque dancers? Check! Top hat wearing folks dancing on stilts? Double check! Confetti bombs and pyrotechnics? Check, check, and check. I don't know who produced this show but it was pure genius from start to finish. Warren even grudgingly admitted that T. Swift was ridiculously awesome. Girlfriend sang (really well, without apparent lip sync-ing!), danced, and flirted through the two hours and we left feeling a little brighter and a lot more bedazzled. I mean, how could we not, after witnessing this:

Note: I had Warren crunch some numbers to see how many guys were present at Taylor's concert. His very technical method of napkin math concluded that guys were present at a rate of 2 per row--or about 10% of the audience. I guess math is good for something after all...

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DOG-EARED PAGES | J.D. LEWIS ON THE HIDDEN REALITY BY BRIAN GREENE

I met J.D. Lewis in grad school and immediately fell in love with her writing. She was the writer I wanted to be--lyrical, witty, evocative. Over rounds of Trivial Pursuit and bad tween movie viewings I forced her to become my friend. I am tickled that she agreed to write the inaugural post for Dog-Eared Pages, a series about people's favorite books. I have been absolutely giddy to begin. There are some stellar recommendations coming over the next few Fridays. Hopefully some of them will make it to your summer reading lists. Without further ado, I present J.D. Lewis on Brian Greene's The Hidden Reality.

Living in China sometimes feels like living in a parallel universe. The stink of street vendors’ unnamable meats, the constancy of the heavying smog, the body language of people whose spoken words I can’t understand – I am surrounded by stuff that is familiar yet totally alien at the same time. This has never felt more true than on the recent humid evening I found myself stretched out on the bed, which is really two tiny beds pushed together, the plywood properties and gap area of which I have sort of gotten used to over the last six months, reading a real book. [English-language books tend to be very expensive or just plain do not exist in (this universe’s incarnation of) my city, so even having a physical object to read feels like winning a tiny prize.]

A subtropical chorus of improbably loud frogs burped along outside my window as I tried to absorb the following passage, from a chapter called “Eternity and Infinity”:

The best available cosmological theory for explaining the best available cosmological data leads us to think of ourselves as occupying one of a vast inflationary system of parallel universes, each of which harbors its own vast collection of quilted parallel universes. Cutting-edge research yields a cosmos in which there are not only parallel universes but parallel parallel universes. It suggests that reality is not only expansive but abundantly expansive.

“Kablooie,” said my brain.

The book is pop-sci writer/physicist Brian Greene’s The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos. It was an impulse buy from a sleek employee-pick display at Village Books bookstore in Bellingham, Washington (recommended by, I prefer to imagine, some ultra-hip nerd named, like, “Chad” or “Dale”), which I visited in January during a US vacation. It leered down from the shelf, its colorful cover coyly suggesting that even a non-scientist like me could dip her toe into an intellectually foreign deep end. The back blurb promised the author wrote with “trademark wit and precision.” Wit! I thought, Sure. Can do.

Wit being a thing that turns out to be vital if an author wishes to invite laypeople to the parallel universe party, and Greene’s jovial voice delivers. In essence, his book gives an overview of current scientific research into the nature of reality. (In an infinite universe, some version of you already knows all this. Another version of you is the one writing this from China right now.) His conclusions involve coherent use of the terms “mathematical tapestry,” “spacetime,” and “probability wave”. He tracks competing theories, each stranger than the last, about the ways in which we can go about trying to define the word “universe” sensibly, about what we can know about what we know to be true.

It is Greene’s extraordinary gift for translating the secrets of the universe into something people who barely get LOLspeak as a foreign language can generally understand that is the most striking here. On the other hand, sudden access to the world of theoretical physics has a way of slowing a girl up; my usual pleasure reading is gluttonous, but I found myself putting down The Hidden Reality down, wandering out into the hazy twilight, and staring zombie-like into the middle distance for long stretches. Although the clicking in of a new concept is immensely satisfying whether you’re dusting off basic math skills or finally getting a cab driver to understand your kindergarten Mandarin, the challenge with this book, for the reader who finds these concepts challenging, may be picking it back up again once you’ve put it down.

In this universe, I think I need a cozy literary diversion for these periods of digestion. But what pairs well with string theory? For this question, the Chinese night frogs seem to have no answer. *

*This is a lie. Every living thing knows the answer is J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories.

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If you are interested in writing a guest post about your favorite book for Dog-Eared Pages, please email me at amyleescott [at] gmail [dot] com. I would love to share!

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EASY SLOW COOKER CARNITAS & OUR FAVORITE SALSA RECIPE

I could eat tacos for every single meal. Fill a fresh corn tortilla with melt-in-your-mouth carnitas topped with tomatillo salsa and avocado crema and I'm the happiest camper you'll ever see. My taco addiction goes back to the big, rowdy family dinners we used to have at Sal's Mexican Inn, a hole in the wall Mexican joint in Oxnard, California. Festooned in bright sombreros, fatty multi-colored Christmas lights, and oil cloth tablecloths, Sal's was big on personality. Sal himself was a jolly mustachioed fellow who had a penchant for string ties and stetsons. He greeted everyone with a firm handshake and made sure our chip baskets were always filled to the brim. 

The whole clan of us--grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, siblings, etc.--would order heaps of tacos, chile rellenos (the best of my life), and enchiladas and laugh for hours. Sal's was Mexican comfort food to the max and I will forever associate a warm plate of tacos with family and home. While we do live close to some of the best tacos in Michigan (thank you, Detroit's Mexicantown), my favorite way to eat tacos is from the comfort of home. Carnitas simmer all day long in a broth of fresh orange juice, lime, and garlic. It fills the house with the most tantalizing smell. Best of all, leftovers can be transformed into some beyond fabulous posole soup. Here's everything you'll need to make restaurant-style carnitas at home:

Fresh orange juice, cilantro, kosher salt, cumin, chicken broth, pepper, garlic, lime, bone-in pork shoulder

Yep, that's it! You probably have most of it in your cupboards as we speak. Carnitas do best when they are left alone. Toss everything in the slow cooker and all you have to do is twiddle your thumbs and salivate until they're done. I love coming home to a homecooked meal after a long day. These are especially good when you need to feed a crowd. But perhaps the best way to eat carnitas is on a warm summer night in the backyard surrounded by friends. Enjoy!

SLOW COOKER CARNITAS
Adapted from The Noshery

• 3 pounds pork shoulder, bone in (you can use other cuts of pork, but this makes the most tender carnitas)
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• Kosher salt and pepper
• 1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (we had Simply Orange on hand so just used that)
• Zest and juice of 1 lime
• 1/4 cup chicken broth (we use Better than Bouillon chicken base and love it)
• 1 tablespoon cumin
• 8 garlic cloves, minced
• Handful of cilantro, chopped (about 1/2 cup)

Sprinkle pork shoulder on all sides with kosher salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large nonstick pan on high. Sear meat on all sides (about a minute per side, until very brown and crispy looking). Your mouth will start watering at this point and it's only just the beginning... In a slow cooker, combine the orange juice, lime juice, zest, chicken broth, cumin, garlic, and cilantro. Add the seared pork shoulder. The citrus broth should come up just about half way on the pork shoulder (maybe a little less than halfway). Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8. Meat should literally fall off the bone and shred easily.

Some people fry the shredded pork for more authentic carnitas but we usually are so excited to eat, we just eat it straight out of the slow cooker. It is still divine. We use a variety of toppings but here are our favorites: Warren's homemade tomatillo salsa (recipe below), avocado crema (blend 1 avocado, 3/4 cup sour cream, 1/4 cup buttermilk, juice of 1 lime, cilantro, pinch of salt), guacamole, crumbled cojita cheese, sliced radishes, and/or mango salsa. I bet some coleslaw dressed in lime, salt, and pepper would do the trick as well. You really can't go wrong when topping these bad boys. Serve with a side of Mexican rice (we love Annie's Eats) and black beans. 

THE BEST TOMATO TOMATILLO SALSA

Warren used to make this salsa with his college buddies by using ingredients plucked fresh from his friend's garden. It is awesome. 

• 4 tomatillos (they look like green tomatoes with husks if you are unfamiliar with these)
• 4 tomatoes
• 2 jalapenos
• 1 onion
• juice of 1 lime
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

Puree tomatillos and half the tomatoes. Dice the rest of the vegetables and mix it with the puree, lime juice, and garlic. Salt and pepper to taste (usually about 1 teaspoon kosher salt and a few grinds from the pepper mill). Let it sit for at least an hour (preferably overnight) before eating so the flavors can get all fabulous. Cut down or add jalapenos, depending on how spicy you like things. Use salsa to top the tacos or simply devour with a bowl of tortilla chips--or both!
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I would highly recommend topping off your taco dinner with a decadent dessert like Nutella Stuffed Brown Butter Double Chocolate Chip Cookies or No Bake Cake Batter or Brownie Batter Truffles.

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