D.C. summer, I am officially over you.

I've had enough of your wicked thunderstorms leaving me, my friends and various business establishments without power.

It happened again last night. An afternoon thunderstorm rolled through the area while I was at work, but apparently it downed power lines on the Metro tracks, making my commute home a true joy and leaving me without power for another seven or eight hours.

When you don't have power, you can't open your fridge. When you can't open your fridge you resort to eating Tositos for dinner.

True story, it was about the only thing I had in my pantry that didn't require something from the fridge. Good thing today was a rest day and I didn't need to fuel up for a run.

But earlier this week, when I had power, I made some fajitas and pico de gallo with veggies I picked up at the farmer's market.

The inspiration for the pico de gallo came when a coworker brought me a big bag full of tomatoes from her parent's garden. I'm not a big tomato fan, but I really enjoy a good pico de gallo from Baja Fresh, so I figured I'd try to make my own.


I chopped the tomatoes, an onion, and a bunch of scallions and threw them in a bowl.








The recipe I found called for two jalapenos.


I was a little nervous about handling these bad boys, but I got them chopped and de-seeded with minimal drama. At one point some juice squirted into my eye that caused me to do some painful hopping around the kitchen while I flushed it out, but in the end I was totally fine.

Once the veggies were in the bowl, I threw in some salt and pepper, garlic powder and cilantro. In the fridge it went to chill.


For the fajitas, I chopped green and purple peppers and a yellow squash.




I've never had purple peppers before, but I found them at the farmer's market and decided to give them a try.

I sauteed the veggies in a pan with some olive oil and a packet of taco seasoning.


When they were finished I warmed a tortilla, filled it with Mexican mix cheese and the veggies and had some pico de gallo on the side.


The fajita was a little bit bland so on the next go-round, I put the pico de gallo inside the tortilla shell. That solved the problem.

I love good Mexican food and I'm always looking for creative recipes to try, so please share if you know any good ones.