Allison: Cara's Shower and Fruit Salsa

Hello, everyone!  No one have a heart attack... this is my second week in a row posting.  I just finished hosting my third baby shower in two months, and finally have a second to breath and LOTS of material to use for posts.

My church congregation has A LOT of pregnant women right now.  I think I counted 8 babies due to be born between May and July.  Crazy!  A number of these girls were having their second babies, and assumed they wouldn't have showers.  But one of my good friends convinced me to have a shower for my second, though I didn't think it was needed (especially having a second girl).  But it was really fun to celebrate this second little one joining our family, and I was grateful for all the cute little clothes and gifts that would be just hers... not shared by her sister.  Being the middle of five girls, I'm a little sensitive about hand-me-downs.  :)

So it was now my chance to pay it forward, and convince more moms-to-be (for the second time), to celebrate their coming babies.  It took some doing, but I was able to convince three of them to let me throw them showers.  I didn't necessarily set out to throw that many showers, but each of these women deserved this celebration and I wanted to make sure they had it.

Shower invite.  I love Power Point (aka Poor Man's Photo Shop)!

Cara was the first to deliver in this next batch of babies.  This was her first girl, and I was so excited that she was willing to let me plan her shower.  (I have to quickly thank Melissa for hosting the shower at her home.  She was so gracious, and let me totally take over her house for a couple of hours.)  I immediately thought of the theme "Sugar and Spice" when Cara said how much she loved everything girly.  I still remember the rhyme I used to read in a book growing up:

Sugar and spice and everything nice
That's what little girls are made of.

The Food:

I need a theme when I plan anything, to help reign in the options.  With the "Sugar and Spice" theme, I decided to plan foods with opposite flavors.  For example:  spice cupcakes and vanilla cupcakes, spicy turkey and sweet ham (for sandwiches), sweet kettle corn and white chocolate peppermint popcorn and spicy salsa and sweet fruit salsa.

I don't know why I had never tried fruit salsa with sugared tortilla chips before!  It was so good and relatively easy.  I used this version on allrecipe.com as a foundation, but ended up tweaking it a little.  Remember how I'm the lazy sister?  Well this is my lazy version.  :)

Ingredients:

Salsa-

3-4 red apples (1 green for color)

pint of strawberries

2-3 kiwis

lemon juice

Chips-

small flour tortillas (fajita size)

melted butter

cinnamon sugar

I followed the allrecipe.com version for the chips, but brushed melted butter on each tortilla with a pastry brush instead of using cooking spray.  I also cut my tortillas into sixths before I coated them with butter.

For the salsa, I only used apples, strawberries and kiwis.  The quantities really depend on how much you want.  I ended up adding more kiwi and a green apple when I thought I was "done" to add a little more color.  I also chopped each fruit into very small pieces to give it even more of a salsa effect.  I then squeezed in a good amount of lemon juice and tossed the salsa until everything was coated.  This kept the apples from browning.  I made the salsa the night before, and it kept well until the morning shower ended.

I think of everything at the shower, the fruit salsa may have been the biggest hit.  The cinnamon-sugar chips complemented the tart salsa perfectly.  Despite the chips coated in butter and sugar, I definitely felt relatively guilt-free since I was consuming fruit at the same time.  :)  I hope you all get a chance to try this treat at some point.  It was fun to make and fun to share.

Cara was spoiled at the shower, and is now enjoying her sweet baby Abigail.  Next week I'll share more of the shower decor.  Until then... have a great week!


Allison