Edamame Mango Salad

I think this might be the easiest thing I have ever made.

The flavors are well balanced. Light, fresh, healthy and delicious.  It's the perfect side dish for just about any summer meal, but I also like to put it over some fresh leafy greens and eat it as a stand alone dish.

If you're motivated and fairly efficient with a kitchen knife you can be done with this in 15 minutes start to finish.

Curried Chickpeas

I love Indian food.  Truly love it.  Though I wouldn't dare classify this as authentic Indian food it is quick and easy enough to make often.  It's good enough to eat alone, but I like to make it a complete meal by putting it over some jasmine rice.  I've also had it for breakfast with an egg on top.  Simply delicious.

Jamaican Jerk Chicken Sandwiches

This sandwich is great, in fact, the only person I've made it for gave it the, "It's awesome!" and wanted me to make it again the next day.  I have to agree.  It's so quick and easy to put together and is really a total meal, though some sort of salad would go along with it nicely.

I used a store bought Jamaican Jerk Sauce  to marinate the chicken.  I may or may not look into making my own sauce at some point, but for now it sounds like an awful lot of work unless I'm going to do some canning to preserve my efforts.  I recommend you check the ingredients and find a nice quality sauce (here is one that looks pretty good to me).  A lot of the sauces I've looked at have high fructose corn syrup as the first or second ingredient.  Nobody wants that.  In fact, I don't want to see it anywhere in the ingredients list.  I have no idea where the sauce I used came from because it was a gift, but I have a sneaking suspicion it was either Trader Joe's or Cost Plus World Market.

Use nice buns.  The importance of nice buns is too often overlooked.

Not Banana Bread

While reeling in the deliciousness of the Gold Medal Plantain snack I made yesterday I was racking my brain to come up with a way to use the 4 ripe plantains I had waiting for me in the kitchen.  Since the ripe plantain is new to me, and it's much like a banana, I decided to make bread.  I had no idea what I was doing and I wasn't sure it was going to turn out, but it did!  I think you're going to love it.

Gold Medal Plantains

Oh the Plantain.  No need for this little jewel to remain a mystery.  When they're green they're starchy, almost like a potato.  When they're yellow with brown spots they look like bananas, and are just starting to sweeten up a bit.  When they're black, really really black, they're ripe.  Yes, they look disgusting at this point and not at all like something you would want to put in your mouth, but it's all a disguise.  Inside is a lovely piece of fruit that's just waiting to be turned into some sort of treat.  Don't balk at this.. I completely understand what you're thinking.  I'm one of those people who likes bananas on the firm side, just barely yellow.  When my bananas get brown spots, I'm no longer interested.  But black?!  Unless I was making Banana Bread I would never consider a black banana, which is exactly what you will think you're looking at.  This is different.  You're going to have to trust me on this one.

I've never had a plantain make it to fully ripe status in my kitchen (see above phobia of black bananas) so I'm pretty excited that yesterday my lovely housemate (who works in a produce market!) brought me a bag of ripe plantains to play with!  I'm pretty busy with work right now so I haven't had a lot of time to figure out what I'm going to do with all of them, but I managed to bust out a sweet little treat with one this afternoon.

BRC Freezer Burritos

The Bean, Rice, and Cheese Burrito.  Mmmmmmmm.

If you are anything like me you're busy.  Very very busy.  Around my house this was translating into too many trips to our favorite neighborhood Taqueria for their delicious burritos.  They're cheap and quick, we like that.  The problem is, as delicious as they are, those burritos are simply not good for us.  Enter the alternative.  You can make as many or as few of these as you like so if (in the unlikely event) you have leftovers of the Mexican Rice you can make a few of these to throw in the freezer for later, or you can do what I'm doing here and make a bunch to keep on hand.

Mexican Rice

Many years ago one of my best friends taught me a few of the cooking tricks he picked up while living in southern California.  This is my absolute favorite.  Seriously, everyone loves it.  If you follow the recipe as it is it's pretty difficult to fail.

So a couple of things about this recipe...

I like spicy foods and to me this is not spicy at all, but I understand some people are a little bit more sensitive.  If you're a spice wimp I recommend mixing the finished product with some unseasoned beans in a tortilla, I have yet to meet anyone who can't handle this that way.  If that really doesn't work out you can cut the salsa amount down and replace the missing liquid with water.  I've never done this so I can't attest to the flavor, but it would still cook up the same.