Hello, hello!

I hope everyone is doing well. With certain places opening up again, please remember to still be careful. It can’t hurt to still be smart about your distance with other people and washing your hands. 🙂

On my side, things are going well. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed by school. There are a lot more distracting noises at home — neighbors mowing their lawns, dogs barking, young children screaming. So focusing is kinda a joke, and motivation is at an all time low. BUT, graduation is soooo close! Just have to hang in there a little longer.

It’s midterm week and I’ve got quantum chemistry and bioinorganic chemistry coming up. Also found out I have three finals on the same day (love that…). I’ve got a 20 source annotated bibliography due Friday, and yes, my sanity is slowing deteriorating.

But with all of those super fun things going on, the one thing I’m looking forward to is my birthday (yay!). Initially my big birthday celebration was going to be EDC in Las Vegas with some friends. However, with coronavirus, that’s been postponed until October and I’m back home for the time being. The upside is that I do get to spend my birthday with my parents! I haven’t had a birthday celebration with them in 4 years because I’ve always been in California. It’s usually with my sister, but it’ll be nice to celebrate with my parents again!

So anyway. A few weeks ago my roommate emailed me an idea for a recipe swap. Since we can’t all be together, this is a fun way to stay connected and meet new people. The recipe I received for the swap was called Healthy Sweet Potatoes and Black Bean Tacos, which naturally, we added to. We had had steak and veggies the night prior and there was a bit of steak leftover, so we added it into the tacos (it was delicious).

We used the same ingredients as the original recipe. I was a little curious about the sweet potato, but it actually fit so well in the tacos. And the honey! So unexpected but so good!! It was a huge hit with my mom and my dad. For toppings, we added shredded cheese, avocado (which we smashed up to make it easier to put on the tacos), and sour cream. The only other change we made was instead of adding the spice mix to the sweet potatoes, we mixed it in with everything, so all of the goodies had some spice.

This is an easy recipe to follow and a great recipe to convert between vegetarian and non-vegetarian. This could also be an easy vegan meal with just a few changes to the ingredients. I would HIGHLY recommend this recipe. Thank you roommate and recipe sender for this great recipe! This is probably something I wouldn’t have typically looked for, but I’m so happy I decided to try it!

Stay safe and stay well. Hoping everyone is hanging in there the best they can.

To be continued…

Gabriela