What's for Dinner?

Generally, I try to eat a vegetarian diet--both for moral and health reasons. However, as I've been transitioning to not eating gluten I've found it hard to stay away from meat due to sheer lack of options in the kitchen. This week I will not have that problem since through the kindness of a good friend I've amassed a large quantity of tomatoes, avocados, and peppers. It's going to be a week of fajitas and stir-fry's in my house, but tonight I had something quite different in mind.

Salad is the perfect dish when you want something tasty without the fuss of turning the oven on or dirtying lots of dishes. It's refreshing without the worry of a recipe, or finding specific ingredients. When I eat salad I generally skimp on lettuce and then pile other vegetables on. It's not that I dislike lettuce, more that I find other vegetables so much more flavorful. Tonight was no different--in fact I didn't even use lettuce at all. I had an overripe mango that I couldn't bear to waste, so Mango Avocado Salad seemed to be the perfect answer for that.

Mango Avocado Salad

Makes 1 meal sized salad or 4 side dishes

1 medium mango

1 avocado

red onion

handful of cherry tomatoes

red pepper

serrano pepper

cilantro

lime juice

balsamic vinegar

This recipe is another of few specifics-- it's very adaptable to your personal taste. The mango and avocado are the base of this salad, so you will want to have the most of those in comparison to the rest of your ingredients. Once you peel your mango, slice and cube it in around half inch pieces. To easily cut your avocado, halve it and remove the pit. Then slice your chunks before removing the peel. (Slice in cubes roughly the size of your mango pieces.) To remove the peel, simply push it inside out. All your avocado cubes should easily fall and you can adjust size from there. From this point on, it's all about personalization. I used roughly a third of a cup of chopped peppers and onions, and four thinly sliced rings of serrano, finely diced. I used more tomatoes than normal because I needed to use them up, and added about a stalk of cilantro at the end. To make the dressing, pour lime juice and vinegar in a small bowl, mix well, and drizzle over the top of your salad. Pictures of this will be added tomorrow.

What did you eat for dinner?