Family – Gabriela Maria

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Tacos

May 4, 2020September 28, 2022Leave a comment

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

Christmas Coasters

December 27, 2019October 1, 2022Leave a comment

Happy Friday and I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays.

It’s been really nice to be home this last week. The house has been very busy with wrapping presents, cleaning up, and just running around doing chores. Somewhere in the middle of all this, I found time to create Christmas presents for my sister and my mom. With a little help from my cousin and my dad, we were able to make these great coasters that include pictures of the family.

This year, I also made little ornaments for everyone. I stitched in a tree, paw print, or menorah, depending on who the ornament was for, and wrote the corresponding name underneath it. Some of the ornaments were blue, some red, one camo print, and the dog ornaments were red with little paw prints over them. Those were my favorite.

We had a wonderful Christmas, opening gifts and spending the majority of the day together. We took a break in the early afternoon to start cooking, so some of us played a quick game of Mario Party. It was really nice to spend the day together.

I’m thrilled that the coasters I made were a big hit. My mom loves her photo albums but it’s hard to display all of the photos around the house. It was nice to be able to create something that can be used (everything in this house basically goes on a coaster) while still displaying some of the photos of that she really likes. DSCN4156

I followed the directions from here with a few modifications. Instead of using craft paper, I had photos printed as 4×6 and then cut them to the desired size. I used 4.5×4.5 white porcelain tiles as the base of my coaster. From here, half of the photo was cut to the size I wanted and glued on using Mod Podge. Since the tiles are porcelain it’s very hard to cut them, so I cut the rest of the photo using an x-acto knife on the actual tile. This allowed me to see the border I wanted around the photo much more clearer.

In order to make the tiles waterproof, they were coated in Envirotex Lite (purchased on Amazon) which is similar to polyurethane. Since the tiles are porcelain, only the top is finished, meaning the back is still very coarse and not great for stickiness. The felt I wanted to use as the coaster portion had one sticky side. In order to use this better, we first coated the back of the tiles with the Envirotex. (Good idea, Dad!). After drying, we coated the top, waited a few days, pasted on the felt, and wrapped the tiles up for gifts! We wrapped the tiles in parchment paper since the tiles were still curing and a little sticky, but parchment paper is non-stick.

I’m really happy with how these turned out for Christmas. They definitely took a while to do but I would highly recommend them as a personalized gift. My mom and my sister really loved the coasters they received.I hope everyone enjoys the New Year!

To be continued…

Gabriela