I was really looking forward to making some delicious strawberry shortcake for Mother's Day until I found out my brother was coming.

He's allergic to strawberries.  It's really terrible.  He gets hives and kind of looks like Will Smith in 'Hitch'.  If you don't know what I'm talking about you should probably watch that movie.  Because it's funny.

It didn't really matter because I've been eying some delicious looking salsa recipes and wanted to try them out on someone.  Cale would be the obvious choice but if just the two of us were going to be eating it... we'd probably finish it.. you're right.   But we'd also probably feel sick.  Enter family.

P.S.  I was going to write a post about how lovely and wonderful my mother is.  Which she is.  But isn't that sometimes hard to put into words?  Anyways.. I love you Mom.  I wish I could put into words how much I love you and how wonderful you are but there are no words.

So I checked out a bunch of recipes from probably 5 different sites and this is what I came up with...

Black Bean and Corn Salsa

2 cups of corn (I used frozen and made sure they were completed defrosted)
1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
3 Roma tomatoes, diced
1/4 of medium purple onion, finely diced
1/4 cup of cilantro, chopped
2 diced avocados
Juice of 2 limes (3 tbsp)
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

First of all, I defrosted my frozen corn.  Fresh would probably be great.  While the corn was defrosting, I chopped up the purple onion and let it sit in a bowl of cold water for about 20 minutes (this takes the zing out of raw onion... if you really like the zing of raw onion you can skip this step).  After the corn was defrosted and the onion was de-zinged, I mixed together the corn, beans, tomatoes, onion, and cilantro.  In a separate bowl, I mixed/whisked the lime juice, olive oil, and all spices.  I poured this over the solid ingredients and mixed well.  I put this in the fridge (I made this about 3 hrs before serving) to let all the ingredients marinate together.  Right before serving I added the avocado.  

It was superb.  I would make it again today if I had all the ingredients.  Cale and I usually just make a giant bowl of guacamole... which is also delicious, don't get me wrong.  But this was really fresh and a nice alternative to the old standby.  It made enough dip for an entire bag of chips.  I think this would also be delicious mixed with quinoa for a side dish or as a taco/burrito topping.  

We had a great time at my parents house again.  We played Wits and Wagers again.  It was hilarious as ever.

This particular question may have been... What percentage of Americans have their high school diploma?  I won't tell you whose handwriting and faith in Americans guessed 13%.  But I bet you can guess.  Ha!  It's actually like 80% or something pretty high.  We were really surprised.  Also, 27% have their Bachelor's.  Now you know.

Happy Monday everyone!