Mango Endive Avocado Salad

I'm a salad fanatic and am always on the lookout for something different for lunch.  I had a slew of mangos at home as they had been on sale.  I created this salad using mango, endive, pine nuts, and avocado and I have to say it was delicious.  The sweetness of the mango, the tartness of the endive, coupled with the soft buttery avocado and crunch of the pine nuts - oh yeah!

Ingredients:

• romaine lettuce
• grape tomatoes (mini roma tomatoes)
• avocado
• mango, preferably Artufo
• endive
• pine nuts, toasted
• sliced almonds, toasted
• green onions, if desired

Shred the romaine and slice the endive.  Chop the mango, tomatoes, and avocado.  Sprinkle with pine nuts and sliced almonds.

I think my dressing was made with olive oil and white wine or white balsamic vinegar.  A regular balsamic dressing would be too heavy and take away from the lightness of the ingredients.

Enjoy!

Raspberry Oatmeal Muffins

This recipe comes from a friend who made mini raspberry muffins.  The original recipe, found below, calls for blueberry muffins.  I made these with raspberries and strawberries, but they would be good with any kind of fruit.  Yum!

Maid Marian's Blueberry Oat Muffins

Ingredients:
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup buttermilk or soured milk
1 cup all-purpose flour (I use whole wheat)
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup melted butter
1 cup fresh blueberries

Directions:
Combine oats and buttermilk. Let stand.
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and brown sugar.
Add beaten egg and melted butter to oat mixture. Mix well.
Add oat mixture to dry ingredients. Fold in blueberries.
Fill well-greased muffin cups 3/4 full.
Bake @ 400F for 15-22 minutes.


Makes 1 dozen muffins.

I found a really great way of adding fruit to muffins without crushing the fruit of discolouring the muffins. I used to find that when I added frozen blueberries to the muffin mixture, it turned the muffins mixture a purply grey colour - not very appealing. Now I add 1/2 the mixture to the muffin tins, place the frozen fruit on top, add the remaining mix, then add additional fruit on top. I push some of the fruits down so it mixes in well with the batter. Works perfectly! and no weird purple colour any more.

Notes:

To "sour" milk or make buttermilk, stir in 1 Tbsp white vinegar to the milk.
I added about 1/4 cup of ground flax seed to the mixture.
I use half Agave Syrup and half brown sugar. Agave Syrup is a natural sweetener, much healthier for you than sugar.
I used frozen raspberries to half the mixture and frozen straweberries, cut, to the other half.
You could easily substitute any fruit for this - mango, peaches, etc.

Corn, Edamane and Potato Salad

So you had a BBQ and have leftover corn on the cob and potatoes. What to do with the leftovers?  Make a salad!


We had leftovers vegetables from a BBQ, so I threw it all together to make a cold salad.  Delicious!

Ingredients:
- corn on the cob (or frozen will do)
- cherry tomatoes
- cooked potatoes
- frozen edamane, thawed
- red onion


Dressing:
- olive oil
- lime juice
- honey
- cayenne pepper (optional)
- salt & pepper


Cut the corn off the cob and place in a bowl.  Chop the leftover potatoes and the cherry tomatoes.  Add the thawed edamane.  Dice the red onion.  Place all together in a bowl.


We had leftover peas as well, so I threw those in too.  If you snap peas, roughly chop those and throw them in too.


For the dressing, all 3 parts of olive oil to 1 part lime juice, add honey to taste.  Add a few sprinkles of cayenne pepper to add some "zing".  Add salt & pepper to taste.   You could also use white balsamic vinegar, white wine vinegar, or rice wine vinegar and olive oil.


Gently toss the dressing and the salad together.  You can serve immediately or it keeps well.  I took it for lunch for several days in a row.