More and more salads and yum yum yummy food

I have been stock piling my pictures so far of the things I have made in the last week so brace yourself. These things are all so amazing. Last night we made the most amazing meal for Jason's family who was visiting. Some grilled shrimp served with some tropical fruit salsa and the usual guacamole recipe. Oh man. It was delicious. This was from the Annual Recipes 2009 Cooking Light. This book is phenominal. So many recipes that are right up my alley. I think I need to just buy it because it's going to take me forever to get all of the recipes out of it. I also made a fruit salad from it that I now made twice in the last four days so you know it's good. So simple.


Both of these recipes were so simple and just prove the fact over and over again that simple is always better. Just tasting the freshness of the fruit brought me to tears. The shrimp was seasoned perfectly and the salsa was the perfect match. The guacamole is always amazing. Yumm. I could eat that every day. In fact today, I popped some burgers I had in the freezer in the fridge to thaw. They were the black bean and rice ones from Rachael Ray that I have mad before. Plopped that on a bun with a shmear of that guac, a slice of ripe tomato and some salsa. Wow, a meal that good shouldn't be so simple. I felt spoiled by myself eating it. I know that this fruit salad will be something I make over and over all summer long. We all love it and it's super simple and inexpensive.

1-2 diced mangos
1 pint of strawberries cut to your liking
4 kiwi fruits peeled and chopped
1 fresh pineapple cut into bite size pieces
the zest of two limes
That's it. Holy crap, this is amazing. I apologize for that but truly, I am going to be dreaming about this for nights. So so so yummy and just gets better and better, juicier and juicier.

The shrimp recipe can be found at this link.
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1714566

Ok, this is a recipe that just proves that this is still my favorite cook book of all times. The Food You Crave By Ellie Krieger. This is a recipe I usually wouldn't make. I just typically don't choose things like this but it was so simple and it tasted so so good. It tasted like it took hours of work. Jason loved it. I know that I will make it again for sure. It was an easy one to do because I could do most of the prep work while Lucy was napping and then just make the juice, wash the chicken and pop it in the oven. In no time we had an amazing amazing meal on the table.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ellie-krieger/tuscan-roasted-chicken-and-vegetables-recipe/index.html

Here is another Rachael Ray sucess story. I haven't had one thing I didn't like from that lady. Thank you Rachael. This was so so yummy. I was really sad because it made so much. I ended up pawning some off to friends but still had to throw some out on the fourth day. It made me sad. I had a little funneral for it. Just kidding I didn't. But come to think of it, should have. You could easily half it but I like having the extra personally. It just so happened that it wasn't something Jason liked so I had to eat it alone. That can be hard to do. Please try this one. It is so so wonderful. I will make it again for sure. In fact I already have jarred peppers and mushrooms in the cupboard waiting for that day to come.
http://www.rachaelray.com/recipe.php?recipe_id=1795


For Memorial Day weekend we had a picnic with Jason's family and these are two salads that I made. I have to say that in the tomato salad I did end up adding grilled corn. What a lovely idea that was. It was really the taste of summer. The one with the black beans is a salad I have been making for over a year now. Talk about healthy with the black beans and the brown rice. I am just so in the mood for this kind of thing. So fresh and full of flavor. So simple too.
This link is to the mango black bean salad
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1714580

The other salad is something I whipped up.
1 can white beans drained and rinsed
1 pint of cherry tomatoes rinsed and halved
1 hanful of basil chopped
2 T lemon juice
1 T olive oil
1 c roasted fresh corn or canned corn
salt and pepper
Toss to combine and enjoy. So yummy and fresh tasting.

To finish it all off I created something from Chef Tom Collichio. The ice cream was my doing but the banana bread was all on him. This is a recipe from his new book Witchcraft. It's an amazing book for someone who want to make amazing sandwiches. This recipe included caramel ice cream but I was in a pinch for time and decided to go with a recipe I alread knew and have made before to simplify things a little bit. Lucky for me I had some dulce de leche waiting to be used in the freezer and this was the perfect pairing. I created the banana bread and served the ice cream on top. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it.