Mango-Pineapple Salsa

Wow. Um. Bad week. Really. For several of my friends. I'm gonna take my slip off the stairs, and go say that was child's play and fun compared to what my friends are going thru this week.

I promised I would put up the salsa recipe, so here it is.

Mango-Pineapple Salsa

1 mango, cut up
1/2 pineapple, peeled and cut up (core it if you REALLY wanna)
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped fine
2 jalapenos, chopped REALLY fine (to taste, aka if 2 is too much, don't use that much!)
1/2 large onion, chopped fine
juice of 1 or 2 limes
2 Roma tomatoes, chopped fine, seeded if you must
pinch of salt, if you want

Chop it up, mix it up. It's not hard, and it's not rocket science.

Variations

Substitute habenero pepper for the jalepeno.
I prefer RED onion, but there wasn't any to be had, so I used yellow onion.
The basic idea is to have a colorful, flavorful salsa there for you to eat.



I apologize for the abruptness of this one, but life is showing me that LIFE is important, and I need to go do some actual LIVING.

Homemade Pico de Gallo

Ok, so, yeah. I had a hankerin' for pico and mango salsa. I'll put the mango salsa recipe up tomorrow, after I make it. But here's this one.

Pico de Gallo, BRAT's WAY

1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
5 Roma tomatoes, small dice
1/2 white onion, small dice
1 jalapeno, seeded, VERY small dice
1 tsp salt
1 green bell pepper, small dice
juice of one lime

Chop it all up, mix it all up. Done. Serve with whatever you want. Tonight we are having shrimp, cheese and pico quesadillas.

Comment from City Girl: "This is kind of addictive."

Variations, and what I was GONNA do

Ok, so, I wanted RED onion and RED bell pepper. I highly suggest those. The store didn't have any of either when I went on either of the days I went. Bad store. This wasn't very "hot" at all. The jalapeno wasn't terribly laden with heat. And yes, I did de-seed and de-vein it. You could leave the veins in for some more heat. You can remove the seeds of the tomatoes if you wish. For some visual differences, try using heirloom tomatoes.

This is most excellent fresh, and you don't get that "overcooked" flavor you can get with canned (jarred) pico de gallo. It's easy as heck to do make, and is tasty as well as a fun way to sneak a serving of veggies in to some kids!

Shrimp Quesadillas

14 oz bag of 110 - 140 ct shrimp
flour tortillas
shredded cheese
that homemade pico de gallo up there
some kind of pan lubrication aka fat (butter, coconut oil, olive oil, etc.)

Get every thing all set out, so that you can grab the bits you want quickly. There are two ways to do the quesadillas. The 1 tortilla method or the 2 tortilla method.

1 Tortilla Method
1. Put about 1.5 tsp of fat in the pan. Let it melt/heat up. Lay your tortilla in the pan, then flip it over (not strictly necessary, but tasty).
2. Put shrimp on 1/2 of the tortilla. Sprinkle cheese over shrimp, and pico over cheese.
3. Carefully, fold over the other half of the tortilla and cook until the bottom is nice and golden brown.
4. Carefully flip the tortilla on to it's uncooked side, and cook it till THAT side is golden brown.
5. Place on plate, slice into two or three wedges, enjoy. You can put more pico on top if you wish!

2 Tortilla Method

1. Put about 1.5 tsp of fat in the pan. Let it melt/heat up. Lay your tortilla in the pan, then flip it over (not strictly necessary, but tasty).
2. Put shrimp on tortilla. Sprinkle cheese over shrimp, and pico over cheese.
3. Carefully, place another tortilla on top and cook until the bottom one is nice and golden brown.
4. Carefully flip the tortillas on to the uncooked side, and cook it till THAT side is golden brown.
5. Place on plate, slice into six wedges, enjoy. You can put more pico on top if you wish!