Mango Fruit Salsa

Last month, I attended my friend Jess' Pampered Chef Party!  Usually, I am not one for "overly-specific" kitchen gadgets, but any party that involves food, and is centered all around cooking is fine by me!

(In all fairness, I do have quite a few Pampered Chef items, and I use them ALL the time; Some, almost every day). 

Almost can't live with out this!

I had so much fun at Jess' party, that I decided to have one of my own: VEGAN style!  My Pampered chef consultant was rather excited to do an all vegan version of her Pampered Chef demo, especially since she had never done anything like that before.  We decided on two recipes:  Mango Fruit Salsa, to highlight the new Manual Food Processor, and Mediterranean Hummus Flat bread Pizza - no cheese needed!

This salsa recipe is so simple to prepare,  and tastes wonderful. I even made this for two cookouts this Fourth of July, and it was a huge both times.

Don't worry if you don't have the Pampered Chef manual food processor. I find that I can dice the fruit with my knife just fine, and it even comes out a little neater looking; The manual food processor just saves time. Please feel free to use lemon OR lime, for juice and zest. I've used both, and they both work well. Depending on the sweetness of the fruit, I add agave nectar to taste, no more than 1 tbsp usually. Serve with Stacey's Cinnamon Sugar pita chips, or your own home made pita chips. This is also amazing served over ice cream! I believe 1/2 cup salsa = 2 Weight Watchers Points

RECIPE:

1 cup strawberry, hulled and diced
1 kiwi, peeled and diced
1 mango, ripe
1 teaspoon lime zest
1 tablespoon lime juice
agave nectar, to taste

DIRECTIONS:

1. If not using the Pampered Chef Manual Food Processor, try and chop your fruit into uniform 1/4 - 1/2" cubes.
2. For the mango, I usually peel the skin off first with my vegetable peeler, and chop a small slice off the top and bottom. That way it stays flat on my board as I slice around the pit.
3. The pit of the mango is large and flat. When you slice off a bit of the top and bottom, you can see its shape. I usually cut down the two wide sides of the mango first, and then carefully slice down the thinner sides to make sure I get all of the beautiful yellow mango off the pit.
4. Ripe mango is very slippery, so carefully slice fruit and dice into cubes.
5. Add all fruit to a large bowl.
6. Add lime (or lemon) zest and juice.
7. Taste, and add agave nectar, up to 1 tablespoons.
8. Serve with cinnamon pita chips.



My gift for hosting a show was this awesome Cool 'N Serve Tray, that has two green panels that you can put in the freezer. When you take your yummy salsa to a cookout in the sun, your fruits and veggies stay nice and cool ^_^

Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits

Pillsbury "GRANDS", step aside. There's some pure, non-hydrogenated goodness  coming from my kitchen.

I follow a lot of vegans on Twitter, and occasionally, a recipe pops up in my Twitter feed that really catches my eye.  The recipe for the flaky, fluffy pillows of goodness pictured above, comes from the blog: Where's the Revolution.  I posted a direct link to it so you can check it out and try them; I guarantee, you will NOT be disappointed!! 

I'm not on Twitter a lot, so I am quite surprised that I even caught Bazu's tweet. It must have been fate, because at the time, I just so happened to be looking for a simple, yet mind blowing, flaky biscuit recipe!! So I marked it with a star, and vowed to get back to it later... (it ended up being months later, but better late than never...)

Now, some background on me and biscuit making:

I have tried the Vegan with a Vengeance Biscuits and Tempeh Sausage gravy recipe:

Gravy was two thumbs up for me, but not so much for L (who is an avid tempeh hater, and devout sausage gravy fan...) Probably not the best gravy to make for her, but, oh well, I tried.

The biscuits turned out pretty well too, except for the fact that I did not have biscuit cutters at the time, and resorted to using a glass. Definitely not the best move on my part, as you can see:  I committed the cardinal sin of biscuit making by twisting the glass to cut through my dough, resulting in no fluffy, flaky sides at all :(

So, one Pampered Chef party later, and I had me some brand new biscuit cutters in FOUR sizes!!

 These work wonderfully! Can you see the difference between the ones above and these?

I though so!

So, for a change of pace, one weekend morning, treat yourself to some home made baked biscuits.  I serve mine piping hot from the oven, with lots of Earth Balance vegan margarine, and blackberry or strawberry jam. A batch of ten can usually serve TWO in my house ^_^