I love salsa!  That is a given so when I thought about a menu items for Sunday to pair with the coconut crusted salmon – I knew it was a summer salsa.  There is something about summer flavors with crisp fruit and sharp vibrant colors makes everyone happy.  I chose to pair both pineapple and mango for the salsa and give it a little bit with cilantro and red onion.  No one in our family are really big onion lovers so I toned down the red onion to avoid any discomfort.  I find it is not really that sharp with the sweetness of the fruit.  To finish off the flavor matching, I chose to add a dash of hot sauce and cracked black pepper.

Ever try hot sauce with fruit?

Ingredients

• 2 Cups of fresh pineapple, cut into small chunks
• 2 Cups fresh Mango, diced
• A little bit red onion, diced
• 1 Cup of fresh cilantro, chopped
• 1/4 Cup of extra virgin olive oil
• Zest and juice of 1 lime
• Several dashes of your favorite hot sauce

Method

1. Put pineapple,mango, red onion and cilantro into a medium-sized bowl.
2. Add lime zest and juice, oil and hot sauce.
3. Toss well and let flavors mingle for at least one half hour before serving.
4. ENJOY!

Zesty Tip: This works very well with any form of meat or even as a vegetarian dish.  It would work great with a stir fry topping or even with cous cous.

Wednesday is here and the week is half over.  It is hard to believe that summer is on the way.  The weekend was super hot and guess what… I did survive a day of roofing.  I am pretty confident in saying that I will never be a roofer full time and I now have a lot of respect for those who do it as a trade.  Have a fantastic hump day and I will talk to you on Friday.

Take care

zesty

Happy Friday!  I know you are going to have a hard time believing this but… Here is another healthy salad.  I am on a new lifestyle kick and loving it.  This week has marked one of my best eating weeks in my life.  I have been really concentrating on eating real foods and watching the types of snacks and foods I am eating throughout the day.  And guess what?  I have not had take out at all in the past 7 days!

For this salad I went a little on the wild side with some of the ingredients but the results were astounding.  I noticed that I had one sweet potato left in the fridge and I was craving it – but I was unsure how to incorporate it in the salad.

I had often slow roasted them in the oven in thin slices so I thought… hmmm that would be a great idea.  Then I was browsing around the blogosphere and noticed Carrots N’ Cake had a similar idea.  Hers looked great so I thought I would give it a try.

Here are the results.

Ingredients

• Red leaf lettuce
• Sliced mango
• Carrots
• Cucumbers
• Roasted sweet potatoes
• Cinnamon
• Olive oil
• Honey

Method

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line baking sheet with parchment paper
2. Slice sweet potatoes thinly and toss with olive oil and cinnamon and bake for 20 minutes.  Then turn sweet potatoes over and reduce heat to 200 degrees and continue baking until crispness is reached.
3. Assemble lettuce, cucumber, carrot and mango.
4. Top with sweet potato slices and drizzle with honey.
5. ENJOY!

Zesty Tip: Initially baking the sweet potatoes at 400 degrees to brown them and begin to crisp them up is a great technique but be really careful they do not burn.  By lowering the temperature to 200 it removes some moisture and allows them to crisp without burning.

I hope you really like the salad as I was tickled pink with the flavor as I devoured the whole bowl full.

Can you ever eat too much salad? This is what I sometimes wonder.  Next week I think I am going to venture into adding some beans into my salad.  I am trying to eat more greens on a daily basis and cut down on my bread in take.  If I ever told you how much bread I consume on a daily basis ( all be it whole grain) you may go into cardiac arrest.

Alright  – I better head out and get some work done.  Have an amazing Friday and if you like the salad drop me a note.  I am always open for suggestions.  I will be back Monday with some writings, tips, and recipes on juicing.

Take care

zesty