30 by 30 List: Month 5

“Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”  ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Another month down.  This little project only highlights how darn fast that 30th birthday is coming at me.  Deep breaths, Tiffany.  Deep breaths.  Here are my accomplishments for April!  (To see the full list, click here!)

#1:  Cook 10 new recipes  (15/10 completed).

This goal has already been accomplished, but I'm just rolling right on with the new recipes!  This month I made the following:

 Italian chicken tortellini soup.  Holy moly y'all.  This stuff was really, really good.  I followed the recipe minus the onion (don't like 'em) plus I added about a cup of water for extra broth and I added a cup of cabbage because I just like cabbage.  I topped with a little bit of parmesean cheese.  It turned out to be realy good, really filling, and quite healthy.  It has about 375 calories for a big bowl.  Highly recommend this one.

Homemade chicken fried rice.  I love me some chicken fried rice.  This recipe looked easy and so I tried it out.  Thumbs up again!  It was really good.  I used brown rice, left out the onion and added cabbage (sound familiar?) but otherwise followed the recipe.  One fourth of a batch of this stuff has about 450 calories.

Taco cupcakes.  For the record, these are actual tacos made in a cupcake pan.  Not the cupcakes that just look like tacos.  Cupcakes that look like other food are a total pet peeve of mine, so I will never be making those!  Anyway, these were really easy to make and turned out to be pretty good.  McCain gave them two thumbs up when he and College Roomie came over for dinner.  I don't know that I'll add it to my list of recipes that I want to cook every week, but I'd make them again for sure.

Fruit Salad.  Since I gave up sweets for Lent, I have had to get a bit creative with my desserts when I have people over for dinner.  Enter this recipe.  I added in some clementines (because they make you buy the big bag and I can't ever eat them all) and thought that it was delicious.  It's super quick and easy to make and really tasty.  This one is a winner for sure.

Mango Avocado Salsa.  One of the girls at work made this stuff and it was seriously to die for.  It's all good things mixed together--avocado, mango, mandarin oranges, pineapple, jalapenos.  I whipped some of it up for a little double date bbq that we had at College Roomie's house and I think it went over pretty well.  

#8:  Send little gifts to my friends once a month  (5/12 completed).

I knew that I'd do something St. Patrick's Day related for my March gift.  I have loved this holiday since I was a kid and my Gran would put on her Irish pin and we'd go to the corn beef and cabbage dinner at the Catholic Church.  Last year's Chicago trip for the green river only made me love it even more.  So I decided to send little gifts to my friends with kiddos to celebrate the day.  I went with little pots of gold at the end of a rainbow.  It was just skittles organized into rainbow colors, marshmallows (the clouds) and the chocolates wrapped in gold.  Easy and cute.

Photo via Super Mom's blog

#9:  Eat in 10 new restaurants (8/10 completed).

Restaurant No. 6:  So College Roomie's family does breakfast every Sunday morning.  It's quite the crew of her great aunts and uncles and cousins.  They have sort of taken me in as an adopted family member and invite me to these breakfasts.  They were pretty distraught when it was announced that I would be "abandoning them" and moving to Texas.  In fact, Uncle Tom's response to my new location was, "It's hot, humid, they have mosquitoes everywhere and the highest drug use in America."  Well, thank you for the support! :)  Anyway.....one Sunday this month we went to Le Peep a cute little restaurant here in town.  I had French toast, scrambled eggs and green chile turkey sausage.  Thumbs up for this place and for family breakfast!

Restaurant No. 7:  Some of my favorite ladies took me for a going away brunch at a joint in Albuquerque called Farm and Table.  The food was amazing.  Seriously, A-MAZING.  I had eggs and green chile enchilladas.  So yummy.  I'd highyl recommend it, with the warning that it's pretty hippie/granola, so if you're a ranch kid like me, be prepared!

Restaurant No. 8:  My amazing law firm took me out for a going away dinner to a place here in town called I Love Sushi.  Most of you know I don't eat fish, so a lot of people were worried about this selection.  But, they have a great Teppan grill and wine list, so it was totally acceptable.  The food was amazing and I had the best glass of Riesling I've ever drank in my life.  Highly recommended!

Going away dinner / I Love Sushi / 2013

28.  Get one of my photos printed on canvas for myself. 

I spent forever trying to decide which photo to print.  I went back and forth between pictures from my various trips---Golden Gate Bridge, Swiss Alps, side streets in Rome, volcano in Costa Rica---but after writing this blog, I knew that I wanted to frame a picture that reminded me of home.  Enter these guys.

Now I've just got to decide whether I'll hang this baby in my new house or in my new office.  Decisions decisions.

#29.  Bring home a bouquet of flowers once a month.

I opted for an Easter lily for this month's flower bouquet.  I absolutely love these flowers and think that I may be able to plant the bulbs in my new house!