Mango Lime Salad with Adobo Tilapia

Recently, I made a trip to a salad and sandwich place and had the most addictive mango and lime vinaigrette on a Caribbean chicken salad.  Tangy and sweet with a little herb-y kick, a perfect summer flavor.  Unfortunately, the contents of my salad were mostly limp and flavorless.  The supposedly spicy chicken was tame and it was seriously lacking in avocado, or really anything other than lettuce for that matter.  But that vinaigrette was worth a revisit so I decided to "dress" up the salad!

Using my food processor, I buzzed up a chunked champagne mango with lime zest and juice and a couple cloves of garlic.  Rice wine vinegar was added followed by streaming in olive oil until I got the perfect texture.  Out of the processor, I added some chopped cilantro, cumin, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

For the fish, I just used the spicy adobo sauce from the chipotles in adobo can.  (If you like super spicy, go ahead and mince some of the chipotles and add to the adobo sauce!)  After seasoning with salt and pepper and a shake of ground cumin, I rubbed about a teaspoon of adobo sauce on each filet.  After a quick sear, I flaked the tilapia over spring greens, red bell pepper, cucumbers, and chunked avocados tossed in the mango vinaigrette.  The end result was a great summery salad that I can make for much less at home!

Pork Roast Pibil: 50 Women Game Changers in Food - #45 Diana Kennedy

Okay, so I've been a bit MIA but all with good reasons.  On May 7, I will officially be done with classes in grad school.  I'm in the throws of finals while finishing up grading for my class I teach and keeping up with my research.  On top of this all?  Signing my first mortgage today!  Oh hayyy grown up . . . sort of.  Cute condo with a gas stove (yesss) in a lovely kitchen, two steps from a metro stop, and a great outdoor space that my kickball team is already reserving for barbecues.  So forgive me in the months leading up to the move for not being too active in the kitchen, I'm going to be on a rampage to cook everything I own before leaving and it probably won't be too blog worthy.

This pork, however, was delicious and definitely blog worthy.  I didn't know too much about Diana Kennedy before this post, or for that matter anything authentically mexican cuisine wise.  I love eating non-tex-mex mexican food in California (ohhh ceviche in Berkeley!), but that was the extent of my knowledge.  Diana Kennedy is referred to the Julia Child of mexican cuisine, amassing a huge wealth of mexican cooking techniques and history over 45 years.  I do not have access to a lot of her typical ingredients, so I decided to take her banana leaf wrapped pork pibil and lightened it up and make it a little more Sarah-friendly.

First, I used a pork roast I found for dirt cheap, both for cost and because I wouldn't know what to do with a 3 pound+ picnic.  I grabbed a can of chipotle in adobo because even after searching in many a spots across DC I couldn't find annatto or dried chiles (any help would be appreciated).  I didn't have banana leaves so I mashed up a little bit of banana for the marinade and wrapped the pork in foil.  I made a quick avocado, cucumber, and mango salsa to cool down the spicy roasted pork for tacos.  Everything can be found in your local grocery store (with a baller ethnic aisle), so get to it!

And here are all of the lovely ladies who also interpreted a Diana Kennedy recipe for the week:
Val - More Than Burnt Toast, Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed, Susan - The Spice Garden
Heather - girlichef, Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney, Amrita - Beetles Kitchen Escapades
Mary - One Perfect Bite, Sue - The View from Great Island, Barbara - Movable Feasts
Linda A - There and Back Again, Nancy - Picadillo, Mireya - My Healthy Eating Habits
Veronica - My Catholic Kitchen, Annie - Most Lovely Things, Jeanette - Healthy Living
Claudia - Journey of an Italian Cook, Alyce - More Time at the Table
Kathy - Bakeaway with Me, Martha - Simple Nourished Living, Jill - Saucy Cooks 
Sarah - Everything in the Kitchen Sink

Mango Beef Stir Fry

First beef dish!  I'm trying to ease into this whole cooking meat thing by using a quick cooking meat that I couldn't screw up!  I got inspired by the grocery store sales, 10 for 10 on oranges and champagne mangos as well as discounted stir fry meat.  Done and done.  So, I mixed up a sweet and spicy stir fry perfect to put on top of soba noodles or lettuce as a salad.  And look, it's so colorful and exciting!

I've been very into the combination of agave, sriracha, soy sauce, and toasted sesame oil.  Last week I used it in a quick salad dressing as well as combined with tamarind concentrate to marinate the chicken pieces.  I made enough stir fry sauce to enjoy for the rest of the week, which is why only a 1/2 cup is incorporated into the stir fry.

Word to the wise - this is the kind of dish to prepare everything before you start cooking.  I cut up all of my vegetables, prepared my sauce, and seasoned the beef before even turning the pan on.  I used coconut oil, which can be used 1 for 1 for olive oil, because it is great for high heat cooking and frying like stir fry.  It can be found at asian markets and in the baking aisle at Whole Foods.

Cilantro Cashew Pesto Crusted Tuna Steaks with Mango Avocado Salsa

If you haven't figured this out yet, I love cilantro.  I feel so sorry for anyone who cannot enjoy cilantro because of that pesky gene!  Its brightness perks up almost any dish, including desert.  Today, I decided to use the power of cilantro in a pesto, used to crust a tuna steak.

To top the tuna, I made a quick salsa with champagne mangos and avocado.  I like to use champagne mangos because I can always tell when they are ripe due to their smaller size and yellow flesh.  I have wasted many a mangos cutting in before they are fully ripe, but never a champagne mango!

This meal was easy to prepare and made me think spring!