As much as I love putting my house together, I also love LIVING in my house. We’ve taken full advantage of the huge kitchen, making everything from chipolte shrimp quesadillas to blueberry bread to marinated NY strips (we also got a new grill that ROCKS). One dish that’s been requested more than the others is my mango salsa. It’s a really simple recipe and tastes delicious, but the eye-rolling comes in because it’s very time consuming.

We’re having friends over for dinner tonight, and of course I decided to make mango salsa (for the third time in three weeks), not remembering that Wednesday nights are shot because we play beach volleyball at Lake Michigan (we won a game! woo-hoo!). Lucky for me my adorable house has an added bonus I haven’t thoroughly emphasized: it’s 1.3 miles from my office. That means even WITH the newly lowered speed limit (45 to 35) I can home in under five minutes.

That left 50 minutes for the salsa. (And playing with Owen, duh). Turns out I can whip this gloriousness out in 30 minutes!

This may also be the first time I’ve worn an apron unironically.