Mango Salsa

I'm a HUGE fan of chips and salsa. I eat way more than I'm supposed to. I guess this salsa is a pretty good for you since it's purely fruits and vegetables so maybe I shouldn't feel so guilty that I ate a good portion of it. But then there are all the chips I ate it with. Oh well, it was worth it.

This is a pretty basic recipe and I'm sure there are an millions other like it out there. In case you wanted my version, here it is:

3 ripe mangoes
2 avocadoes
1/2 c red onion
1 small red pepper
handful cilantro roughly chopped
juice or 2-3 limes
salt and pepper
garlic

Dice everything to the size of your liking. I used my food chopper for everything except the avocados, cilantro, and garlic and it worked like a charm. Toss everything together and refrigerate until ready to use. It's good to give it at least 30 minutes to get all the flavors to blend. A couple of my mangoes weren't as ripe as I would've liked, but still good. These are the red white and blue chips we ate it with on the 4th of July. Those Garden Salsa Sun Chips on the right are awesome. Check them out sometime.

Vegetable Pancakes with Pesto

I had a lot of veggies to use up so this seemed like a fun thing to do with them. Here's how to do it:

I grated up potatoes,, carrots, a yellow squash, and about half of a red onion. This can of course be altered to whatever amount you are making. I added a couple eggs, flour, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and a little Worcestershire sauce. I combined everything formed it into little cakes and let them fry in a little olive oil on a medium skillet. They took a while for the vegetables to cook all the way and get nice and brown, but turned out alright. Next time I am going to fill the skillet with about 1 inch of of oil and a do more of a deep fried version for a more crispy treat. And a faster cooking time. I added a dollop of sour cream and a homemade pesto sauce for fun. Here is the recipe for my pesto. It's pretty basic.

1/2 c basil

1/2 c parsley

2 cloves garlic

2/3 T pine nuts

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 c Parmesan cheese

olive oil

Again, portions can be changed according to taste. Put everything except olive oil in a food processor. When everthing is minced, slowly pour in enough olive oil with the machine running to make a nice sauce. It really packs a punch, so a little goes a long way. It can be used to just toss with pasta, hot or cold, a bread dipping sauce or with any meat. It's great to have on hand and freezes well if you don't use it up in a couple weeks.