Summer! How did that happen?

Well, yes, we're back home again. We arrived to a deliciously hot, summers day. As we walked out of the airport towards our waiting taxi I couldn't help but notice that it even smelt like home! The smell of sun-dried cut grass is so wonderful and reminds me so much of holidays spent at Whangamata as a kid. Bliss!

The one thing I have really really missed food-wise while we've been away has been coriander. And on catching up with all of the blogs I try to read, I stumbled on Wino Sapien's Mango Salsa. Before we left I'd been making a huge variety of salsas, with a different one every couple of nights, but mangos had not quite been of a palatable price at that stage! However they're now not too bad - so I picked up a couple of mangos, some coriander (yay!) and chillis - they didn't have any that looked hot enough, so I upgraded to one of these (and no I didn't use a whole one! in fact I only used about 10% of it, and yes, it certainly threw quite a punch!).


I also bought an avocado and 2 nights later this was delectably ready, so I concocted a huge bowl of mango and avocado salsa (a slight variation on the one above - I ran out of lemons so used white wine vinegar, oh, and of course I added a chopped avocado) which I planned to serve with a bbq-ed rack of lamb. Sadly however our fridge seems to have been underperforming and just as we were ready to slap the lamb on the barbie, we both took a whiff of it, noted it's slightly green-hue and promptly trashed it and desperately tried to find something else to throw on the hot bbq! No luck there sadly.

Plan C - 2 nights worth of mango and avocado salsa became the mainstay of the meal, accompanied by a can of rather bland salmon - but the chilli needed something bland. :) And potatoes which of course had been prepared in readiness for the lamb! A slightly odd meal perhaps, but the salsa was devine. Albeit a rather firey kind of devine. :)


(once again - apologies for Cell Phone photographs).