tropical fruit salad and tex-mex turkey and bean chili

Here's a twofer! Yep, I managed two recipes in one day.
Let's start with the most simple, recipe, if we can even call it that. Tropical Fruit Salad is more like an obvious mixture of fruit. But, is it that obvious? Well, not for me. First off, I rarely eat fruit - I'm totally on team vegetable. And if I were to make a fruit salad I'd probably always throw bananas in since that's the only fruit I eat regularly. But the ingenious creation of this salad has all fruits with equal texture, size and bite which is why it works. That, and using brown sugar to deepen the flavour. It's so delicious I ate an entire half this recipe in one day!

Then for dinner I made what turned out to be an army infantry size pot of chili. This is Tex-Mex Turkey and Bean Chili this recipe is not online, so I can't share the link. So I'll go into detail about the unusual ingredients this chili takes. Starting with cooking bacon to crispy, you then cook ground turkey in the bacon fat - FABULOUS IDEA! You then add onion, garlic, tomatoes and jalapenos. For seasoning this recipe calls for cocoa powder, chili powder and cumin. There is also an addition of molasses. Finally adding my favourite bean - Pinto beans! Sound odd? Well, it's the best chili I've ever made (and I've made at least 5 different kinds in the past). I'll probably just use this one from now on.

Now, when I cook Tex-Mex, I always garnish with Montery Jack cheese, sliced avocado, sour cream and sometimes cilantro if we have it in the house. Since cooking through this Everyday Food book is my effort to enjoy a bit of a departure from what I normally do, I decided to buy pickled jalapeno peppers as a side. Wow, I'm so happy I took a chance and did because I now wonder where they've been my whole life! It's like discovering how great pickled ginger is compared to eating it fresh.

And while I'm finding the time to indulge in a longer blog entry I wanted to note that these Everyday Food recipes make huge amounts of food. Most keep Nuno and I eating at least 2 dinners off one recipe. Which means it will probably take over a year to cook through this book. And these recipes taste better a day later - I'm totally serious. It's especially true of the pasta recipes because the flavour enriches after sitting around for a day in the refrigerator.