Mango-Avocado Salad, Dwight Style

I finally got around to making the recipe from the last posting from Fresh365Online. If you know me, or have read this blog, you probably realize by now that I NEVER follow recipes exactly and this was no exception. So, let's call this new recipe, Mango-Spinach Salad. I also added chicken, and white rice, and I didn't have any cilantro (although, I almost went to the store JUST for that but I am glad I didn't because it was fine without it!) and I used some other substitutions. See below!

Ingredients:

A handfull of spinach, chopped

1 mango, sliced into small cubes

1 avocado sliced into small cubes

1 can of black beans drained and washed

1 baked chicken breast (seasoned with salt and pepper) and cut up into bitesize pieces

I used a pepper from our garden rather than a jalapeno pepper. I'm not sure what type it was, but it was a sweet pepper, similiar to a banana pepper. Anyway, I used one of these, remove the seeds and dice.

1 T Lemon juice from a lemon

1 t sugar

2 T olive oil

black pepper to taste

salt to taste

cooked white rice

In a bowl, combine spinach, mango, pepper, black pepper, a dash of salt, half of the lemon juice. Mix together. Gently add avocado.

In another bowl, mix up the sugar, rest of the lemon juice, a little bit of black pepper, and olive oil. Add the beans to this mixture and coat well.

To serve, put white rice in the bottom of dish, add black bean mix on top, add chicken pieces, add spinach-mango mixture on top and garnish with fresh black pepper.

Steve calls this meal a hit!

Mango-Avocado Salad

My friend Heather, posted this recipe on her blog today and it made my mouth water! I am going to try it this week! YUM! See original post from Fresh365 Online.

Mango-Avocado Salad with Black Beans and Lime Vinaigrette

adapted from Whole Foods . serves 4
2 ripe avocados, peeled and cut into 1/2″ cubes
3 T lime juice
1 ripe mango, peeled and cut into 1/2″ cubes
1 jalapeño, seeded and minced
1 t grated lime zest
1/2 t salt
1/4 t sugar (or agave nectar)
2 T chopped cilantro, plus more for garnish
4 T olive oil
1 15.5-oz can black beans, drained and rinsed
black pepper, to taste

In a medium bowl, toss mango and jalapeño with 1 T lime juice and salt. Add avocado and gently toss to combine. In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining lime juice, zest, sugar, cilantro and oil. Toss the black beans with the vinaigrette. To assemble, spoon the black beans with vinaigrette into the center of a serving platter. Top with the mango-avocado mixture. Garnish with chopped cilantro and black pepper.

Mango Chicken

If you want to impress your friends with an easy, delicious, fresh, and PRETTY dinner, cook this:

Chicken with Mango Salsa

Salsa:
-Dice a mango in small cubes. Mango should be ripe, but not mushy.
-Cut up a red bell pepper into small pieces
-Add some chopped green onion
-Add a small bunch of cilantro
-Mix ingredients together
-Squeeze a lime over the mixture
-Do not add salt to the salsa
-Put into the fridge until chicken is ready

Chicken:
-Pound out the chicken breasts so they are flat. This also helps the chicken stay very tender.
-Put some olive oil into a pan on the stove top and warm it up.
-Sprinkle Kosher salt and pepper onto the chicken breasts
-Put chicken onto hot pan and cook about 3 minutes per side, or until you think the chicken is ready!

Spoon Salsa over chicken and enjoy!
Serve with a side of couscous....they go great together.

Substitions and additions:
-Add avocado to the salsa
-Add a glaze to the top of the chicken
-Substitute different types of bell pepper for the red
-Substitute pineapple for the mango if you can't find any ripe mangos.

Please Note: I do not include amounts of the ingredients because it depends on how many people you are cooking for. I usually only cook for two people, so in this case I used two chicken breasts, half a bell pepper, a whole mango, about 6 green onions, and a handfull of cilantro. When I cook, I hardly ever measure things out, so just play with it and experiment in your own way! You can add other spices and seasonings as you wish, but the salsa really adds a lot of flavor to the chicken!