Tropical Fruit Salad

So far this week has been one of those great weeks where I feel really productive and accomplished. Work is very busy because we're having our fundraiser on Thursday night - so I'm using this opportunity for some shameless self promotion. If you happen to be in Winnipeg and you're looking for something fun to do on Thursday night you should head down to The Park Theatre on Osborne for Fort Garry Women's Resource Centre's Women's Night of Culture.

And now on to food. So it seems Shawna and Dylan have decided to opt out of the Fresh Option box from now on. The small box works out to $16/person so we decided to switch to the small and continue starting next week. I'm really loving the set up. This week I managed to use every single thing in the box except tomatoes. Our box partners decided not to get the box for a variety of reasons, one of which was they found some of the ingredients went bad before they got to use them.

This was a bit of a problem for the first two weeks for us but this week I realized I had to prioritize my vegetable use. I made sure to make salads first with the spinach and lettuce, use the celery for chicken stock, etc. This week I've been keeping an eye on what we're getting via the website and thinking about what I want to use first and how I want to use it. I already know I'm doing Thai Coconut Red Curry Soup with the broccoli and cauliflower on Friday or Saturday and I'm planning to use the kale tomorrow, but I haven't quite decided what I'm going to do with it. Most of the other produce can last just fine for a while longer.

This method of centering our meals around our produce is also making grocery store shopping cheaper and more efficient. Either than onions, garlic, and extra bananas we don't buy anything that's not already in the produce box. So all we need to buy from the store is the ingredients for the planned upcoming major meals, regular kitchen staples, and the usual stock up items like canned goods and nuts and beans and all that kind of stuff. Ryan and I are trying to be very budget conscious so we can save up for some good vacations.

Today was a good cooking day too. I'm trying to constantly improve my eating...more natural, less processed. The more I do this, the better my health gets and I love it! I had a really tasty little snack for lunch.

That's monterey jack cheese, gouda, feta, kalamata olives, raw almonds, and a pear.

I didn't used to be a fish person but for the last year or two I've been really trying to get myself to eat more. I have never eaten salmon...except from a can, and even that was probably 20 years ago. Ryan really likes salmon so my mom gave us a couple of frozen salmon steaks. Always eager to try something new, I decided to cook them up tonight. Recently Ryan and I caught an episode of Good Eats where Alton cooked up three different types of salmon. I went with his Broiled Salmon with Citrus Glaze and once again, he didn't fail.

Pre-broiling while they marinated.

I think I really should have halved the recipe for the rub but it all worked out in the end. I forgot to take a picture after they were cooked but the brown sugar came out black and hard, but then I just peeled off the black part and underneath was a lovely glaze. Because I didn't know how it was supposed to taste I made Ryan taste it first and tell me if it was good. He said he'd never really had sweet salmon before but he really liked it. Everyone told me salmon tasted really fishy, I guess as far as fish taste goes, but I didn't find it fishy at all. It was really nice and the glaze was delicious. Because the only veggies we had left were tomatoes (which I didn't use) and 1/2 an onion I just made a basic risotto with Jamie Oliver's recipe. This is my go-to risotto recipe and it's delicious everytime. Yesterday I made 10 cups of chicken stock so I was able to use about 4.5 in the risotto.

For dessert I decided I wanted to get rid of the last of our fruit because we get a new box tomorrow. I threw all the fruit together and then was inspired by the tropical aspect and came up with this.


Tropical Fruit Salad
*Serves 2

• 1 red anjou pear, cubed
  
• 1 green pair, cubed
  
• 1/2 mango, cubed
  
• 1 small grapefruit, cubed
  
• 1 kiwi, cubed
  
• 1/4 cup coconut milk
• 1-2 tbsp honey, to taste

Toss all ingredients in a bowl, mix, and enjoy!

I'm on a bit of a coconut milk kick lately since dairy has been giving me some issues. I've tweaked my smoothie recipe by using 1/3 cup coconut milk instead of regular milk, omitting the coconut oil, and using 1 cup of pineapple (I used canned) and 1/3 cup of fruit. I like my smoothies very thick hence the use of less liquid in this version. It was really fantastic, and I bet it would go great with a bit of Malibu. :D