Its starting to feel like summer here, well the temperatures are rising anyway, even if the clouds like to remind you that this is London still. With summer I seem to get even more lazy with cooking. Ideally I'd walk out of work and pick up some food being prepared in the street but I'm seriously fed up with the choices here, Indian though good is expensive, Chinese is just blah, if I have any more fish n chips or burgers my heart will probably go into reject mode, and though the Turkish Kebabs here are decent i've had them way too often on a saturday night. Choices exhausted I had to get inventive. What was I missing out on? I hate shopping when I'm hungry and have no ideas. Especially at the overpriced shop that pretends to be a supermarket in these parts. Begin at the veg aisle and just start throwing shit into the hand basket.
Tomatoes
Coriander
Radishes
Jalapeno
3 Limes
Red Onions
Pineapple
3 Granny Smith Apples
3 Oranges
Add some Cayanne Chilli Powder
Some Salsa
Some Mince
Some Tortillas
and don't forget the Irn Bru
Now the hand basket is overflowing its time to pay for it, go home and find a use for this mixture.
Dinner was easy fried off the mince with the red onion and salsa, threw that in with the cherry tomatoes, coriander, radishes into a tortilla making some tacos that reminded me of many a cheap night on the streets of Salt Lake.
Dessert was much harder work. But infinitely worth the extra effort. I love pineapple but I hate cutting one, but this fruit salad I had in mind called for the sweetness of the pineapple. The pineapple cut into one inch chunks, together with the oranges and finer sliced apple on its own would have been just like any other boring fruit salad, tasty perhaps but probably not worth all the energy expended. This is where it started to get interesting. I took the red onion that I hadn't used in the tacos, Finely sliced it, took the jalapeno and finely sliced the hell out of that too, threw it with the rest of the fruit, giving it all a good shake. Added a little salt. Took the 2 and half limes I hadn't used on the tacos, and squeezed every last drop of lime juice out on to the fruit salad. Took a spoonful of the cayanne pepper and distributed it around the fruit so that each piece became dotted with the dark powder. Ah fuck it! I like me some heat. I added another spoonful. Now to taste. Holy shit !!! I could sell this. The sweetness of the fruit, the refreshing combination of the lime and corander, merge with the heat of the jalapeno and chilli powder and your mouth is having a party unsure what the fuck is going on but loving every bite. I ended up adding another couple of spoonfuls of chilli powder because I loved the feeling of my mouth being on fire whilst the juice of the fruit refreshed it with each bite so by the time I ate two bowls of fruit salad I was in need of a glass or two of Irn Bru. But then again I did sip up all the firery leftover juice once I cleared the bowl of fruit.
If I had the time I might have been tempted to get myself a little market stall and sell this - then again I hate cutting up pineapple, screw it - this is one fruit salad I'll be keep for myself.
Listening to: Creo En Ti - Ana Tijoux & Juanito Ayala
