Endless Summer Photos

As I was procrastinating on sleep on Wednesday night and mindlessly spending time on my phone, I happened to start scrolling through the all the pictures I had taken this summer.  And I thought to myself, “Wow, I had such a great summer and took some awesome photos too!”   I had what I believe to be a great idea and decided to write  summer highlight review blog with all the cool pictures I took!  Without further adieu, here it is. Summer 2014.

Well, this is embarrassing. I didn’t take this photo. It is way better than the selfies I took at graduation(look you can see my phone in my hand, proof that I was taking selfies) and I figured since I technically left off blogging at the beginning of summer with graduation, I should pick up where I left off. Graduation was great, it was a little long and hot, and I was just getting over being sick, but it was nice for it finally to happen!

A week after graduation and a few days after my sister got out of school, my family and I embarked on a three-week long camping trip. This photo was taken in Bozeman, Montana, after two very long days of driving.

My dad and I went fly fishing one evening, just outside of Bozeman, didn’t catch anything but spent sometime along a river that bordered beautiful farmhouses and pastureland! This was one of the farms that we passed by and to me it looked like something out of a fairy tale.

 

From Bozeman we went on to camp in Glacier National Park. We were joined by our good family friends and they continued on the rest of the trip with us. We went on a hike to Avalanche Lake on the only sunny day we experienced, and it was gorgeous. The lake is Glacier fed, surrounded by mountains, and so serene. My sister and I loved the numerous photo opportunities that the hike presented; around every bend was a new view to be captured!

This is one of my favorite moments of our entire trip. We found some old man’s beard, and all decided to have beards. A family that beards together, stays together. :) I couldn’t help but make a collage with the best of all the funny pictures we took. Old man’s beard for the win.

The best part about this picture is that when we were driving into the national park, the ranger asked my dad, “So you’re bringing your dogs to the park?” totally not knowing that what he had mistaken for dogs in the backseat was really my sister and I. In his defense, the windows were super muddy so I’m sure he couldn’t see much. But you know you are having a great hair day when the park ranger mistakes you for a dog. :)

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This is my favorite place in Yellowstone. It is called Grand Prismatic Springs and it is amazing. The colors in this picture are 100% real, I have not altered it at all. If you go to Yellowstone, you must see this.

 

We got home, after what seemed like a joyous eternity, and I spent many a morning running on the beach, soaking up the sand and sun before I moved up to college!

 

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Sunset on the Puget Sound, on Labor Day evening and my last day of summer.

Point Defiance deserves way more pictures than just this one of the dahlia garden, but this post is already way to long, and I will post more about adventures at Point Defiance later.

As part of orientation, we got to go camping for three days about two hours away from the school! I was in the overnight canoeing group, and except for the fact that it was super cold and rainy most of the time, it was a really cool experience! Unfortunately, it also deserves a whole other post devoted to it, so I will leave my description at that.

Since day one of Kindergarten, I have taken a First Day of School picture on every first day of school. So of course I had to follow tradition and take one on my first day of college! :)

Sorry for the terribly long post! I hope you enjoyed the photographic recap of where I have been all summer and can see why my blog has been neglected! Since the first day of school, I have done homework, been sick, studied, bought my own groceries, made some friends, baked and cooked a little, and done laundry; all super normal everyday life things. But now, you are officially caught up on the major highlights of my life since I last blogged about it in June.

College, Black Beans, and Brownies

People always said, “Oh yeah, once you are in college, you will miss having a home cooked meal every night.”  And the true meaning of this statement never sank in until I was actually in college.  I have eaten cafeteria food for a little less than a month, and I cannot wait to go home and eat my parents cooking.  Not that our cafeteria food is bad, it just isn’t the food I’m used to. For all my UC school friends that still have another three weeks of summer, savor every bite of home cooked food.  Appreciate it in its entirety.  You will miss it.

I was assigned to live in a room with three other girls.  I was very unsure of how it was going to turn out because living in a cramped space with complete strangers for nine months could go many ways.  Then, the week before I left to go to school, one of my roommates emailed us and informed us that she toured the room and we have a full kitchen and bath in our room.  Um, excuse me?  What?  How is this possible?  As it turns out, we were randomly assigned to the Resident Director’s apartment that was converted into a student dorm.  We basically won the entire housing lottery.  It has been such a blessing to have a kitchen and be able to make my own food once in a while.  The truth is that I wish I could make every meal for myself and not even have a meal plan.  But alas, since I’m living on campus, I must have a meal plan and I should use it or it would be a huge waste of money.

Anyway, I have made eggs, chocolate chip banana pancakes, two batches of chocolate chip cookies, toast, and as of an hour ago, black bean vegan brownies.  I even sent some cookies home to my mom and sister, because my sister made a comment over the phone that she and my mom were down to their last homemade cookie after sending me so many in a care package and how it was too hot to even think of turning on the oven to make more.  So I sent them some dorm-made cookies because I wanted to repay the care package favor.  Because really, no one should be without homemade cookies for too long, especially after school has just started.  That cookie in your lunch very well could be the highlight of your day some days. (Sadly, this is the case once or twice in life; you have bad days that require a cookie to make it better.)  I learned to check with the person who ships your package as to how long it will take for it to arrive, because once they got back home, they were a little crumbly and drier than expected.  It’s the thought that counts, right?

Anyway, tonight I made plans with a friend(yes, I made a friend. Can you believe it?) to try out this new vegan recipe I found on Buzzfeed.  We had no idea how it was going to turn out, but after being sick all weekend and therefore doing nothing but homework and sleeping, I had a little free time tonight to try it out.

The verdict is that they are super fudgy, rich, and dense, and completely and unexpectedly good.  When I heard they had black beans in them I was a skeptic, but these are definitely brownies I would make again.

 

I stole this picture from Farmgirl Gourmet (link at the bottom of this post). It is way better than any picture I could have taken.  Props to her for this excellent piece of food art. :)

 

Here is the recipe that I got from Farmgirl Gourmet, and then tweaked to fit the ingredients I had in my dorm:

 

Dark Chocolate Vegan Brownies

Ingredients

1 15 oz can black beans, rinsed and filled with new water

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/4 cups sugar

1 1/4 cup dark cocoa powder (I used regular unsweetened cocoa powder, because it was cheaper)

4 tsp instant coffee powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup of water (the original recipe calls for Guinness beer, but seeing as I am underage, that wasn’t going to happen)

3/4 cup chocolate chips (or nuts, if you so desire)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Drain the can of black beans into a colander, rinse the can clean and the beans until all bean juice is gone.  Pour the cleaned beans back in the can and fill the can back up to the top with fresh water.
3. Puree the beans and water in the blender and set it aside.
4. Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl: flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and instant coffee powder. Mix together.  Make a well in the center to pour your liquids into.
5. Pour bean purée, water, and vanilla into the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix together, being careful not to overmix.
6. Stir in chocolate chips or nuts and pour into a greased 9 by 13 pan.
7. Bake for 25-30 minutes and rotate the pan halfway through.
8. Let cool and enjoy! :)

Note: Depending on whether you like coffee or not, I would adjust the amount of instant coffee powder.  The four teaspoons definitely makes it so you can taste the coffee-ness but not in a bad way.  I don’t drink or enjoy coffee, but I loved the extra layer of flavor it gave the brownies and it complimented the chocolate very nicely(as expected). Also, I haven’t tried it with beer yet, but I am curious as to how it tastes, so when I get home I will be trying it again, this time with the beer.  Lastly, I am not vegan, so I didn’t worry about using butter to grease the pan, so if you are vegan use canola oil or cooking spray.

PS Don’t worry, I promise I have made more than one friend.  I mean, who doesn’t want a friend who will bake them yummy goodies all the time? :)

Click here to see the original recipe!

Reflections on the Past Four Years

Robert Fulghum wrote a poem back in 1990 titled All I Ever Needed to know I Learned in Kindergarten.  In it he writes,

“These are the things I learned:

Share everything.

Play fair.

Don’t hit people.

Put things back where you found them.

Clean up your own mess.

Don’t take things that aren’t yours.

Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.

Wash your hands before you eat.

Flush.

Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

Live a balanced life – learn some and think some

and draw and paint and sing and dance and play

and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon.

When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic,

hold hands, and stick together.

Be aware of wonder.

Remember the little seed in the styrofoam cup:

The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody

really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even

the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die.

So do we.

And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books

and the first word you learned – the biggest

word of all – LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere.

The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation.

Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any of those items and extrapolate it into

sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your

family life or your work or your government or

your world and it holds true and clear and firm.

Think what a better world it would be if

all – the whole world – had cookies and milk about

three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with

our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments

had a basic policy to always put thing back where

they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you

are – when you go out into the world, it is best

to hold hands and stick together.”

 

As I was pondering what to do for my senior project and reflecting on the abundance of lessons I learned in high school; I realized I really wanted to write a letter similar to Fulghum’s poem to both freshman me looking back, and my sister as she is going to be a freshman next year.  Here is what I came up with.

Dear Freshman me,

All you really will ever need to know, you’ll know.

and even on the perchance that you don’t know,

being the resourceful girl you are, obviously you’ll Google it.

Knowledge will not be found in the $100,000 of college tuition debt, but rather in the classroom, on the playing field, and in everyday life.  These are the things you will learn by graduation day:

Everything is better with food.

Attitude is everything.

Find a couple of things you love and apply yourself to them.

YOLO is not the best way to make major life decisions.

Stress doesn’t get you anywhere in life.

A smile and a greeting can make a persons day.

Don’t give up; on people, on life, or in class.

Ask questions.

Don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself.

Dream big, because  if you reach for the moon and miss you’ll land on a star.

Take risks.

Waiting until the night before to start anything is a bad idea.

Don’t be afraid of change, change is healthy.

Make friends, and “When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together”.

Family is everything.  They have been yours from day one, and they will always love you.  Appreciate them.  Spend time with them.  Savor those dinnertime moments, those times where you are laughing so hard it hurts.  Soon you will be moving over 1000 miles away, eating dinner without your family; your presence at the dinner table thoroughly missed.

But take heart everything will be okay.  You will still be able to Facetime, go home on the holidays, go on family camping trips, stay home for summer, and sleep in your own bed in your own house.  You can still go home and eat home food; you don’t have to be a vegetarian forever.

Cherish those times with your sister.  Those she may sometimes feel like an annoyance, imitation is the highest form of flattery.  Go easy on her and make memories; she is only going to be an innocent middle schooler for so long.  Have fun.  Take adventures together. Be spontaneous.

When you start following these tips, there is one very important thing that you must do.  Can you guess what it is?

Have fun. Though that’s a good one; it’s not the most important piece of advice I have for you, because you will have fun anywhere and with anything.  The biggest regret you will have is not taking enough pictures. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so take pictures on top of pictures on top of pictures.  There is no such thing as too many pictures, so snap away.  Capture the memories, you are only in high school once.

With love,

Senior you

Over-Involved and Under-Committed: The New Generation

When I was growing up, my parents had a rule for my sister and I (well they had many) but the particular one had to do with commitment.  They told us that we could only choose one sport/ extracurricular activity at a time. We were not the over committed family that always had 3 soccer games, a softball game, church, and a girl scout meeting all in a weekend. The most I got away with doing was soccer and girl scouts at the same time.  And this was permitted only because Girl Scouts met once a week for maybe two hours at a time.  It wasn’t a huge time commitment, my parents believed it was important, and I liked it.  They wanted to preserve family time and their sanity.  I am so grateful that they did.

But I am noticing a growing trend that concerns me.  First in society as a whole; that we are way to busy.  I am totally guilty of this, so I am not preaching from any pulpit, that’s for sure.  Secondly, many people, especially high schoolers, are over-involved and under-committed.  Now, hear me when I say that.  Over-involved and under-committed; how is that even possible?

To answer that question, I ask you to reflect upon what most colleges are looking for in a competitive applicant.  They want a well-rounded individual, who has played a varsity sport, been the president of a club, while being involved in two other clubs, been involved in the community, and on top of all that maintained stellar grades and achieved great test scores. I feel like they are asking for their applicants to dabble and under commit to everything, just so they can attain that “over-committed” level that colleges look for.  If there was a common mantra among current high school students, I’m pretty sure it could be, “Just do it for the app.”

The frustrating thing about this over-involvement is that instead of picking a couple of things that they love and committing to them and being super involved with them, students are doing things for the label, just so they can say they are “involved” on their college application.  AND COLLEGES SEEM TO ENCOURAGE THIS!  Though I’m sure every admissions counselor would say, “We would much rather you be deeply involved in a few things that you are passionate about, instead of a bazillion different things”; the activities section on the common app begs to differ. There are ten different sections to fill out describing your different activities and involvements in high school.  And if you only fill out four of them, that’s leaving a lot of blank space on the application that decides your scholastic fate.  Thus, students are driven to over involve themselves and under commit.  It is impossible to be completely committed to ten different activities, maintain good grades, have some semblance of a social life, and still sleep for the 8-9 hours recommended for teenagers.

What is created is a “Do it for the college application” attitude. And one can assume how frustrating and annoying this attitude can be. Try taking already slightly noncommittal teenagers, throwing them into ten different activities, and telling them to be committed to every one.  What you get is the bare minimum, a warm body in meetings, brain only half there, constantly thinking of all the other things that have to be done.  The expectation is that we are able to do it all, while in reality we have no chance.

 

 

Secret Garden Salad

There has always been a garden in our backyard.  My mom was raised in the same house we live in now, so even decades before I was born, when the house was brand new, there has been a garden.  My grandpa grew potatoes, corn, tomatoes, avocados, oranges, apricots, and beans.  Today we grow apricots, spinach, romaine lettuce, swiss chard, garlic, beets, onions, kale, broccoli, snap peas, green beans, tomatoes, olallaberries, lemons, oranges, tangerines, basil, cilantro, potatoes, carrots, and avocados.  Needless to say, we grow a lot of our own produce in the right seasons.  Right now, the lettuce, chard, kale, and broccoli are booming.

The weeds in the garden used to annoy me so much; there were so many of them and I HATED pulling weeds.  I didn’t like it because I wanted perfection and didn’t want to see a single weed in the entire garden.  The task was daunting, so I usually pulled weeds in maybe a two foot square area and gave up.  Then one day something clicked.  I realized that I don’t need to pull out all the weeds at one time.  Like everything that needs fixing and adjustment, it becomes more manageable if you do it a little at a time.  Now, every time I go out to pick fruits and veggies, I pull fifteen weeds or so, and toss them in the compost bin.  Maintenance is always easier than overhaul.

Anywho, because our veggies are booming, we have been eating salad right out of our garden and it has been wonderful.  We got a recipe for an awesome salad that we fell head over heels for probably four years ago.  Since then, I can count on one hand the number of times we haven’t eaten some variation of this salad with dinner.  And we have salad with dinner almost every day, for sure an average of 6 out of 7 days of the week.  The dressing is homemade and simply amazing, and we have altered the recipe to our liking and to make it easier to prepare every night.

This isn’t a picture of one of our salads, but its very similar and you get the idea. It’s a delicious salad.

My mom was hesitant to even give me the secret recipe to post, because it is so wonderful.  Caroline on Sweetly Lemon specifically asked for it, so here it is!

 

Roberts Family Famous Salad

Salad:

1 head romaine lettuce, chopped

spinach, kale, chard(whatever greens you have available), chopped

broccoli(cut into small bite sized pieces)

¼ to ½ cup red onion

a good sized handful of dried cranberries

6-10 strips of cooked bacon, diced

2 handfuls of Pita Chips, crushed

Put it all in a bowl together and wha-lah! We only have bacon in it for special occasions, and never measure any of it specifically, the measurements are just guidelines; feel free to alter them based off of how many people you are serving.  Don’t put the pita chips on until the last-minute, as they will get soggy quickly and just roughly crush them in your hands and sprinkle it on top.

Dressing:

1 cup canola oil

½ cup sugar

½ cup red wine vinegar

1 Tablespoon soy sauce

a couple cloves of garlic, smashed(just leave them floating in the dressing container, remove it before pouring it on the salad)

We always have the dressing on hand in a protein shake type container because we use it so often.  I would recommend making it in advance-it tastes way better that way.

 

This salad has been particularly amazing as all the produce is home-grown, straight out of the garden.  I highly recommend this salad, as well as planting a garden, but the garden requires much more time and space than the salad.  Happy salad making!

Gluten Free Culinary Perfection

Ever since day one, my family and I have had almost weekly dinner with our family friends(more like family) that live four houses down the street from us.  The meals are sometimes more elaborate, and sometimes its a “whatever we can make with what’s in both fridges” dinner.  Either way, the food is always great and I always look forward to it.

I can’t even count the times where we have called our family friends or vice versa and said, “Hey! We’re trying a new recipe tonight, would you like to join us for dinner?”  (I’m pretty sure normal people don’t invite people over for dinner when they are cooking a new recipe, just saying.)  The fun thing is that whenever we try a new recipe; there is always the possibility that we will have to call for pizza, and we are all willing to take that risk. In all my years of eating these creations, I can’t remember a night where the dinner has been so terrible that we actually have called for pizza.  That being said, this environment has always encouraged me to try new recipes, and wing it, even if you don’t have all the ingredients and are under a little pressure.

Over the weekend, my grandpa came down to visit and attend my sister’s soccer game.  We all completely forgot that he had recently(within the past two weeks) become officially gluten intolerant, and didn’t remember until he said, “This is amazing! It’s the first bread I have had in two weeks!” when we made him a sandwich.  He ate the sandwich, thinking it would be okay just for that meal, but it didn’t go over so well.  He told us what he had been eating and how much he was missing noodles and toast, and especially cookies.  He LOVES homemade cookies.  He wasn’t even aware that they made gluten-free substitutes for bread and noodles, and was blown away that I could make him some gluten-free cookies.

I, being the extremely resourceful person I am, googled some recipes, found a promising one, went to Sprout’s for the gluten-free ingredients, and embarked on a gluten-free cookie journey.

The reviews I read for this recipe were all very good, and praised it.  My goodness, I followed the recipe to a T and I ended up with gloppy, crinkly, soft, and gooey cookies that wouldn’t even come off the cookie sheet.

It was a mess. These are just the ones that came off the sheet looking at least a little like a cookie. The rest was only fit for ice cream toppings and/or immediate sampling.  Needless to say, there were several cookie fatalities that night.

 

I finally got so frustrated with it that I stuck the remainder of one sheet back in the oven to hopefully crisp up and be easier to remove while still maintaining the cookie shape.  Meanwhile, I ranted to my mother about school, checked Facebook, lamented the sad state of my cookie disaster, looked at another recipe-realizing I forgot to pick up half the ingredients, made an entire new batch of cookies after tweaking the recipe, got them all set up on the cookie sheet, turned on the oven, took a picture of my kitchen mishap, and finally looked at the oven to see why it was seemingly taking forever to heat up.  And this is what I found…

My First Ever Burnt Cookies :(

I have never, ever, burnt ANYTHING this badly. EVER.  It was terrible.  I burnt everything so much that the chocolate chips were crummy.  Boy was I frustrated.  I don’t really like failing at things I normally excel at.  Like I have said in earlier posts, I don’t mind failure, knowing that failure is the only way to learn, but seriously, I have been making cookies since I was old enough to be in the kitchen with my mom.  Thinking back on it, I think I was more frustrated that my cookie pride was hurt, not really that I had “failed”.  It wasn’t a complete failure as the undercooked ones tasted good, but just didn’t hold their shape.

Being my hardworking and stubborn self, I wasn’t going to let these cookies have the best of me, I put the newly altered recipe batch in the oven and watched them like a hawk.  The reward was SWEET REDEMPTION, both literally and figuratively.

Much Better

Lesson learned, just like Aunt BethAnn has always said, don’t ever be afraid to make a dish, based on how it will turn out or how it did turn out; you can always order pizza and try again another time.

Professional chefs have had their share of meal mishaps and burnt food, and look where they are now.  Maybe burnt food and mishaps are just a step in the right direction towards culinary perfection.

Anyway, I almost forgot to include the recipe(the one I changed).

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 9-11 minutes

Total Time: 26 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups of your favorite GF all purpose baking/flour substitute
• 1 teaspoon guar gum
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (for chocolate mint chip cookies, use 1 teaspoon peppermint extract)
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup (6 ounces) gluten-free chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375° F / 190° C

Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper or lightly oil

Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl and whisk to combine. In a large mixing bowl, combine egg and sugar and beat with an electric mixer on high until light and fluffy. Add butter and beat on high until combined. Add extract and beat briefly. Add dry ingredients and mix until combined. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts (optional).

For 1 dozen large cookies use a 2 tablespoon (1/8 cup) ice cream scoop or drop heaping tablespoons of dough on prepared baking sheets.

For 2 dozen small cookies use a 1 tablespoon ice cream scoop or a rounded tablespoon.

Bake in preheated oven for 9-11 minutes or until cookies are crisp on edges and slightly soft in the middle. Cool on baking sheet.

Sweet Potato and Chorizo Tacos

I haven’t written about my passion for food before on this blog, but if you didn’t know; I love food.  Homemade meals are my favorite thing ever, and goodness knows what I am going to do when I have to leave for college.  I hope this post will be the beginning of many posts about my food adventures as I try new recipes and dishes.  My english teacher encourages us to always “try the peanut butter pie” meaning if you are given the choice between trying/eating/doing/etc. something you know you like and something unknown, to try the unknown because that is how you develop new favorite things.  Thus, this new section of Life as a Fish out of Water will be called “Trying the Peanut Butter Pie” and it will represent the adventurous foodie side of me.

I have hated sweet potatoes for as long as I can remember.  Every year on Thanksgiving, I would eat a mandatory tablespoon size bite of them, just to avoid “the look” from my mother and to respect my grandma, who lovingly made them every year, much to my dismay.  My grandma loved them, to her they were the best thing about Thanksgiving(food wise anyway, family was always her favorite aspect of the holidays).  I never understood why she liked this mushy, orange, gloppy, mashed potato-impostor thing, called sweet potatoes.

These were my thoughts up until two weeks ago, when I had my first baked sweet potato.  I was instantly addicted and wondered, “Why did I hate this amazing veggie so much?” It was simple, baked in the oven, cut open and served with a light sprinkling of butter and brown sugar.  All of the objections I have to regular baked(and streamed) potatoes were gone.  It was moist, flavorful, and nutritious. Since that eye-opening day, I embarked on a sweet potato craze.  I have tried them in many forms(even pancake form), but my favorite so far has been Sweet Potato and Chorizo Tacos.

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/sweet-potato-chorizo-tacos-50400000133216/

My sister found the recipe in the Sunset Magazine, and decided that we HAD to try it.   We didn’t have chorizo on hand, so we substituted in a spicy sausage(not in link form, more like ground beef consistency) that we had in the freezer from a friend in Wyoming.  Like I said before, they are amazing, and certainly have become a staple in our household.

Here is the recipe(from Sunset Magazine)

Ingredients

• 1 small white onion
• 1 medium orange-fleshed sweet potato (often labeled “yam”)
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 pound Mexican chorizo*, such as Silva brand, removed from casing

• 12 corn tortillas (6-in. diameter)
• 6 romaine lettuce leaves
• 1 lime, halved
• 2 ounces cotija (crumbly white Mexican cheese)* or feta
• 2 firm-ripe avocados

Preparation

1. Peel onion and sweet potato and dice into 1/2-in. cubes. Heat oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add onion, potato, and salt and cook until onion begins to soften, about 2 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until potato is just tender, 8 to 9 minutes.

2. Increase heat to medium-high and add chorizo. Cook, breaking up sausage with the back of a spoon, until cooked through, 7 to 8 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, heat tortillas in an oven or a microwave, or char over an open flame until warmed and softened. Wrap in foil or a clean kitchen towel to keep warm.

4. Stack and thinly slice lettuce; combine in a bowl with juice of a lime half and cotija. Halve, peel, pit, and thinly slice avocados; put in another bowl and toss with juice from remaining lime half.

5. Spoon about 3 tbsp. chorizo-sweet potato mixture into each warm tortilla. Divide lettuce and avocado among tacos.

*Find Mexican chorizo and cotija at well-stocked grocery stores and Latino markets. Avoid the very soft, bright orange chorizo–it’s too oily.

*Find the original recipe at  http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/sweet-potato-chorizo-tacos-50400000133216/