Summer salsa

There's only person in my house who likes peppers.

Since that person is me, I get to claim all six servings of the freshest, yummiest summer salsa - which was just made today. (Yes, we visited the farmer's market).

This stuff is so good that you don't need to eat it with baked tortilla chips. It's awesome as a side dish, a topping for tacos or, if you must, as a chip dip. 

Every ingredient in today's batch was fresh, sans the canned black beans. I think that's what made it extra amazing. However, I've made it before with all store-bought produce and remember it was a crowd-pleaser. 

Seriously, you can't go wrong.

Here are the ingredients:

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

3 tomatoes, chopped

3 peppers, diced (I used a red, yellow and orange bell pepper)

1 diced hot pepper (I used a spicy banana)

1/2 bunch of cilantro, chopped

3 ears of corn, cut from the cob after cooked

1 garlic clove

Salt

Pepper

Lime juice, to taste

By my calculations, 1 cup of this should cost you 2 WW points plus. 

Thank you, 0-point peppers!

The devil's eggs

It's so hard to be good during the holidays.

(Happy Easter, by the way.)

I've been saving up all of my 49 bonus points for today's celebration at my grandmother's house, where not a single food item served will be categorized as "healthy."

As it turns out, the Lord had other plans for us. My four-year-old son, JB, has been running a high fever most of the weekend. After the doctor diagnosed him with strep throat, JJ (hubby) and I made the executive parental decision to skip this year's big family celebration.

That meant I could work with a blank slate for Easter dinner.

It also meant I had to cook every single dish.

Egads!

I'm a good cook, but holiday meal preparation belongs to the more experienced women in my life - my mom, mother-in-law or grandmother.

So, I did what I always do when looking for Weight Watchers-friendly meal ideas: I started surfing the web. With the assistance of AM, my very opinionated seven-year-old daughter, it didn't take long to outline a somewhat healthy Easter meal:

• Herb crusted pork tenderloin (an altered recipe from www.skinnytaste.com)
• Cheddar mashed potatoes - http://www.wwrecipes.net/cheddar-mashed-potatoes.html
• Green salad
• Sister Schubert Rolls (I only ate one!)

As we were outlining the shopping list, AM throws me a loophole. If she's not going to get to see her Nana on Easter, then she wants to know if I'll at least make deviled eggs.

Um... sure.

Despite the fact that I've never made deviled eggs and they're not exactly healthy, my biggest concern is probably silly to most of you. I absolutely cannot boil eggs. It's impossible! I either over-cook them or under-cook them, and regardless of the cooking method, the shell always sticks to the eggs. JJ and I have asked advice on how to perfectly boil eggs from both of our mothers; we've read instructions online; and we've consulted cookbooks. Nothing has ever worked.

Nonetheless, my daughter wants deviled eggs and I want her to have a happy Easter. So, I find a recipe online and decide to give it a try.

As usual, the shells stick. After thirty minutes of trying to peel a dozen boiled eggs, I'm so frustrated I could throw something across the room (an egg, maybe?). In the end, the full dozen eggs didn't survive, but we had enough to enjoy for our dinner. The low-fat filling was really yummy, and they looked pretty good too.

My first Easter dinner wasn't exactly my best Weight Watchers meal attempt, but it was a heckuva lot better than what I would've consumed at my family's gluttony fest.

Want to know more about the eggs? Find the recipe here: http://pinterest.com/pin/249809110550834923/