Avocado Salad Fit For Fitbloggin!

I am so excited to be heading to Fitbloggin again this year. Fitbloggin is the class reunion/family reunion full of all of your favorite people. Some of whom you've actually met in person. One of the amazing sponsors this year is the California Avocado Commission. They are holding the California Avocado Cutting-Edge Culinary Recipe Contest for people attending Fitbloggin this year, and I couldn't be any more excited. If you've read my blog, you know that I love to cook with fresh ingredients, and you can't get much fresher than California avocados.

Since it's rapidly approaching meltdown stage in Texas, I wanted to make something fresh and cool, yet full of flavor. Summer on a plate.

Avocado and Mango Salad with Chicken and Grilled Pineapple (serves 2)

Main Ingredients:
1/2 pineapple
1 mango
1 California avocado
2 cooked chicken breasts

Dressing:
1/4 red onion, finely diced
2 T light olive oil
1 T white wine vinegar
1 t honey
1/4 t cayenne
1 T lime juice
2 T cilantro, finely chopped (you can use basil or Thai basil if you don't care for cilantro)

Garnish:
sliced salad topper almonds
cilantro
red onion

To Do:

Peel and core your pineapple. Cut in to wedges approximately 1/2 thick. Heat up a grill pan over medium high heat and grill the wedges for 5 minutes on each side. Set aside to cool while you finish putting the salad together. (If you're like me and already have the bbq grill up and running, grilling the pineapple outside would be awesome!)

While the pineapple is cooling, peel and core your mango and cut in to bite sized pieces.  Next, take your cooked chicken breasts and cut in to half inch cubes.  Lastly, halve your avocado, remove the pit, and slice in to cubes. The easiest way to do this is to cut in half, lengthwise and split apart. Take the side that has the pit and tap the pit with the blade of your knife. Slowly twist and pull out the pit. Next, you take a small knife and cut the meat of the avocado in a grid pattern all the way to the skin, without cutting through. Then you simply use a spoon to remove the cubes. (Here's a hint: You can do something similar to the mango by slicing the mango "cheeks" off of the sides of the mango, and score in the same manner, using a knife to remove the mango cubes.)

For the dressing, finely chop both your red onion and the cilantro. Reserve a little of each to garnish the salad. Place the red onion and cilantro in a medium sized bowl, big enough to mix the salad. Add the olive oil, white wine vinegar, honey, cayenne and lime juice. Mix well with a fork to combine.

Now that your pineapple is cooled, cut the fruit into 1/2 inch chunks. Add the chicken, mango, and pineapple to the dressing in the bowl and gently mix to coat.

Spoon your salad in to a nice serving bowl or on to a bed of lettuce leaves. Garnish with sliced almonds, cilantro and red onion.

Enjoy!

Update: Today I added diced cucumber to the leftovers. I loved the crunch it added.

My Favorite Summer Salad

Mmmmm. Crunch, crunch, crunch. You'll have to excuse me, I'm crunching away on this salad as I am typing. I have been making an effort to include more vegetable dishes in my meal plans. At the risk of making the baked eggs in swiss chard for the third time in a week, I decided to switch things up and make my cauliflower and broccoli salad. It's a salad that eats like a meal, and I can eat bowlfuls of this salad. The addition of the cauliflower gives it a wonderful crunch.

Cauliflower and Broccoli Summer Salad

1 head of broccoli
1 head cauliflower
1 c coleslaw dressing
1/4 red onion, diced
3 hard boiled eggs, chopped
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 T apple cider vinegar or herb vinegar
1 T lemon or lime juice (or sprinkle in about 1 t of True Lemon)
1/2 c bacon bits
1/2 c Craisins
1/2 c toasted pumpkin seeds

Trim and cut the broccoli and cauliflower into bite sized pieces. Wash and drain the broccoli and cauliflower and place in a large bowl. Mix in the coleslaw dressing, making sure to coat the vegetables well. Cover and chill for at least two hours so that the flavors mix.

Stir the broccoli and cauliflower mixture. Add in the diced red onion, vinegar, lemon juice, shredded cheese, chopped eggs, bacon bits, Craisins, and pumpkin seeds. Mix well and enjoy!

Perfect summer salad

Summer. The time of year when you can get the most amazing, fresh, in-season produce. In-season is important because it means you can find locally grown fruits and vegetables that were picked at the peak of ripeness and weren't trucked in from across the country, or from another country altogether.

Lucky for me, corn and tomatoes are in season right now in Texas. I wish I could take credit for growing these amazing vegetables, but I can't. I didn't plant tomatoes in my bed at the community garden this year, and I've never had luck growing corn. This year I planted potatoes and onions. I'll plant tomatoes for fall harvest.  Usually I steam or grill a few ears of corn, we'll enjoy them, but I tend to have some left over. Rather than have it go to waste (something I'm really working on), I left a few of the ears uncooked so that I could try making a salad. I'd had black bean based salad in mind, but that isn't what I ended up making. What I ended up with was even better. Feel free to play with the amount of veggies you use, and adjust the dressing quantities to match. I made enough for me for a couple of meals, but this would be fantastic to bring to a cookout.

Sweet Corn and Tomato Salad

3 ears of uncooked sweet corn - kernels removed
1 cup of grape or cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1/4 cup of red onion, finely diced
2 T olive oil
1/4 cup vinegar (I used an herb vinegar)
freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 T finely chopped cilantro (optional if you don't like or don't have cilantro)

Cut the kernels off of the corn cobs and combine with all of the other ingredients (except the cilantro)in a large serving bowl. Mix to combine. Refrigerate for at least an hour to let the flavors blend and the salad to get nice and cold. Mix in the chopped cilantro before serving.

Enjoy!

Now to dream up something to do with those in-season Texas peaches I picked up yesterday...

Kyra