Paradise Found in Pineapple Guacamole

Pineapple Black Bean Guacamole

Want a fresh treat that tastes like paradise?  This guacamole is it!  With a tropical twist of pineapple added, you'll be singing holy guacamole!  

Pineapple Black Bean Guacamole

2 medium avocados, halved, seeded and peeled

1/4 cup salsa verde

1/2 cup finely chopped fresh or canned pineapple

1/2 cup black beans, drained and rinsed

1 fresh jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced*

2 T finely chopped red onion

2 T chopped fresh cilantro

1 T minced garlic

1-2 T lime juice to taste

1/4 t ground cumin

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup Cojita cheese, crumbled

In a large bowl mash avocados.  Stir in salsa verde until combined.  Add pineapple, beans, jalapeno, onion, cilantro, lime juice, cumin, salt and pepper, and stir.  Cover and chill 2 hours.  Sprinkle with crumbled cheese.  Serve on warmed tostadas or with tortilla chips.  *Use kitchen gloves and eye protection when handling jalapeno seeds to avoid burns. 

Salsa Verde Ingredients

Now this is where it gets really fresh:  Make your own salsa verde with tomatillos, poblanos, cilantro and more!  Don't use the canned stuff.  It is easy to do and your taste buds will thank you!

Salsa Verde

2 poblano peppers

4 tomatillos, quartered

2 avocados, halved, seeded and peeled

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 lime, juiced

1/4 bunch cilantro, leaves only

1 T white vinegar

Pinch of salt and fresh cracked black pepper

Put poblano peppers under preheated broiler on a sheet pan.  Cook for 8 minutes, turning every 2 minutes until skin is charred.  Remove from broiler and allow to cool for 10 minutes until skin separates from the flesh.  Core, seed and peel the charred skin from the peppers.  Place in food processor.

 Add tomatillos, avocados, garlic, lime juice, cilantro, vinegar and seasonings to the peppers.  Pulse until salsa is smooth.

Salsa Verde

Pineapple Guacamole Tostada with Fruit Salad and Black Beans

Frosty Food Furnishes Family Fun

Mmmmmm!  Mango!

Last weekend we visited our best friends from college days.  They live in a town that is only about a four hour drive from our home, but we don't see them as much as we would like.  When our two boys and their three children were younger, we vacationed together every few years and have some great stories and running gags from those trips.  All it takes to get the entire crowd laughing is for someone to say "minner cheese," an inside joke from a long-ago trip to Hot Springs. Since all the children are grown and our friends' children have little ones of their own, we were past due for a get together.

A Chef in the Making

The girls have followed the blog and when the granddaughter visiting from Chicago requested a lesson in paleta making, I was thrilled!  Evelyn is quite the precocious four-year-old and she eagerly made the trip to the market to choose flavors and find the best fruit available.  At the check stand, she twirled on my fingers and we danced while the groceries were bagged, anticipating the fun!  Back at the house she juiced lemons, pulverized the fruit, added the sugar, and did the critical taste testing required for proper paleta preparations.   We rushed to get the desserts in the freezer by noon so everyone would have frosty treats for the evening's dessert.  When we were finished, every surface of the kitchen was sticky, but we had, with the help of the little one's mother and grandmother, prepared 42 paletas in sweet, pink watermelon, mouth-watering mango, scrumptious strawberry banana, tangy orange-lime, and enticing vanilla-soaked cherries in chocolate almond milk.

What a celebration we had that night with 16 and two more on the way! And even though we call them friends, the term chosen family is a better fit.  When generations come together to play, laugh and learn from each other, paletas are a tasty treat, but extraneous for joy abounding.  The pleasure is in the work of furthering relationships and sharing passions with the next generation.  I recommend bringing children into the kitchen.  It's a recipe for discovering fun!

Sweet Watermelon Paleta

Delish Dessert

Healthy Treat for a Growing Boy

Mango Lime Recipe

Enjoying the Fruits of Her Labor     

2 1/2 cups fresh peeled mango, cut in 1 inch chunks  
1 lime, zest and juice
1/4 cup sugar or to taste
2 t fresh ginger grated or 1 t ground ginger

Combine mango chunks, the zest and juice of 1 lime, sugar and ginger in blender or Cuisinart and pulse until smooth. Divide evenly into molds. Add sticks and freeze 4-6 hours.

Avocado Astonishment

One of the fascinating aspects of concocting paletas is imagining interesting ingredients. When most people think of ice pops, fruity sweet syrups and artificial flavors are expected.  The only common ground between purchased popsicles and paletas is the fact that both are frozen treats.

When asked to name a favorite flavor amongst the paletas I've made, I often answer "avocado." This  usually surprises and confounds the questioner.  Avocados typically bring to mind savory guacamole and trips to a Tex-Mex restaurant. A green fruit which is normally used as a garnish is a startling base for a popsicle.  But add a little sugar, lime juice, some zest and it is oh-so-delicious!

I've recently found that exploring the unexpected is rewarding.  Instead of dreading disorientation, I  found creativity clamoring in a time of disquiet.  On tasting an avocado paleta for the first time, a friend remarked that her taste buds were confusing her mind. In a good way. Exactly!

Avocado Lime Paletas Recipe

4 avocados, peeled and pitted
2 small limes juiced plus zest of 1 lime
1/4 cup sugar or more to taste
1/4-1/2 cup water optional*

Place green flesh of avocado, juice of 2 limes and zest of 1 lime and sugar in Cuisinart.  Pulse until completely smooth.  Add water and pulse again if a less dense, more icy paleta is desired.*  Spoon into molds, add sticks.  Freeze 4-6 hours.   

Brooke <3's Her "Green Ice Cream"

Opposites Attract

In life, attempt to be a complementary flavor; it is the attractive option.  

An often repeated phrase is "opposites attract" and I certainly see the proof of it in life.  My friend from college days, Lisa, is 4'10".  Her husband of 32 years is 6'5", and yes, people turn and stare as these two, on opposite ends of the vertical spectrum, walk past.  How could people be so different?  A dog lover falls for a woman with cats, the party girl pairs with the computer geek, an ISTJ personality type walks down the aisle with an ENFP.  This can make for an interesting combination or instantaneous combustion, once the goo-goo eyes go away.

When the choice is made to appreciate our differences and learn from those who appear to be opposite, we become tempered and transformed into a fruitful, more tolerant version of ourselves.  As I prepared lime pie paletas, I recalled a time when two co-workers, Jon and Cathy, could not have been more opposite from me in their work habits and styles.  We chose to value our differences and in collaboration, let each other's strengths shore up individual weaknesses.  Instead of launching a war to best one another, we loved, and through appreciating our dissimilarities, the individuals were immensely enhanced.  In a few years, those colleagues moved on, if only the cooperative spirit had remained...

Lime pie paletas bring together the tart, tangy taste of juicy limes played against the intense sweetness of Eagle Brand milk.  They provide a burst of flavor that combines and contrasts at once.  They are opposite individual tastes, rolled in a graham crust which blend to make a delectable, more perfect whole.
Lime Pie Paletas Recipe
Adapted from Paletas by Fany Gerson

1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup half-and-half
3/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
2 t lime zest
1/4 t salt
2 cups crushed graham crackers

Combine sweetened condensed milk, half-and-half, lime juice and zest, and salt in a bowl and whisk until well-combined. Pour mixture into molds, insert sticks and freeze 4-6 hours until solid.  Unmold and allow to thaw very slightly, roll in graham cracker crumbs to coat and return to freezer or eat immediately.

pastel de lima de paleta

Peaches or Pits?

My walking partner and I made a run on peaches, warm off the tree, juice-dribbling-down-our-chins, sticky, syrupy peaches.  She dreamed of baking crisps and cobblers while I envisioned peachy paletas, sweet and tangy, freshly frozen.  We made a plan and offed to Efurd's Orchards, to bring home as much blushing fruit as my Mini Cooper would carry.

Pleased with our purchases, and having no other appointments or to-do lists for the day, Becky and I drove into town for lunch and a peek into a past century at a tiny museum.  We delighted in our no-plan agenda of selecting produce at the road-side stand and doing as we pleased.  Like the peaches in the boot of the Mini, the day had a cheerful glow, having met our expectations as we headed home.


Then there was a rock that sounded like a boulder.  Sailing through the air it banged into the three-week new windshield, precisely in my line of vision with no chance to ignore it or look away.  The rock, this malevolent speck, bounced away shattering my contentment, leaving a scar so deep it nearly pierced the glass.  My peachy glow paled to liquid green with a punch to my suddenly churning stomach.

There was a decision to make.  Would the rock in the road ruin my experiences at the orchard?  Would it color my delight in creating peach paletas, turning everything lifeless or sour?   Would I add it to my lengthy list of recent woes, or could I choose to patch it up, regain strength and retain the sanguine spirit of the day?

Evil intruded into my life uninvited, but I could not allow it to change my spirit.  It did not take minutes or hours, but days to choose delight over dejection.  Before the Mini was repaired, with the windshield replaced once again, peach paletas were made and pleasure was reinstated.  I picked peaches over pits.  It is always the better portion.

Peach Paletas Recipe

3 cups fresh peaches, pitted and peeled, retaining a few ribbons of skin on each peach

1 lime, juice and zest

1 t fresh grated ginger

1/4 cup sugar, or more to taste

1/4-1/2 cup water or club soda, optional*

Combine peaches, lime juice and zest, ginger and sugar in Cuisinart.  Pulse until smooth.  If a denser paleta is desired, leave out water.  If an icy, crunchier texture is preferred, add water or club soda.  Pour into molds.  Freeze 4-6 hours.