Blood Orange Fruit Salad

Spring has arrived - well, for the rest of the country. It has been here in Phoenix for a while, and we're just about ready to welcome - dare I say it - Summer.

I can hope that the triple digit temperatures will stay away for a few months more. We always have hope, right? At any rate, warmer temps are coming and that makes me less inclined to cook, to turn on the stove or, even worse, to turn on the oven. Just as cold days bring cravings of warm soups and stews, hot days bring cravings of  - well, let's be honest, popsicles and ice cream.

Since living on popsicles and ice cream is not nutritionally ideal (although could be extraordinarily yummy), fruit salad often fills the bill for us during Phoenix's outrageous summer months. Fruit salad is light and delicious, easy to make, and best of all, requires no heating.

Another thing I love about fruit salad is its versatility. Any fruit combination will do - as long as you like the fruit, various combinations can come together to create a yummy, satisfying dish. And, it can be a side salad or a meal on its own.

For our most recent incarnation of fruit salad (shown above), we picked blood oranges from our neighbor's tree, paired it with apples, raisins and green bell pepper. The sauce is simply plain yogurt. (I absolutely love plain yogurt for its versatility, too. Add sweetener or spices like salt and pepper and it becomes something completely different.) The fruit in our fruit salad was plenty sweet, so we didn't add any sweetener to the yogurt, but feel free to experiment, and sweeten to your tastes. And enjoy! Enjoy the warmer temps, make an easy, light, carefree dinner and go outside and play! Be Fulfilled!

Shrimp tacos, avocado cilantro salsa, avocado tomato salad

Simplicity can be truly awesome. Case in point: shrimp tacos. For the shrimp lover (like me), shrimp tacos are heaven! This taco is all about the shrimp. There is nothing in the taco but shrimp and a yummy avocado cilantro salsa. Absolutely one of my favorite summertime meals! (It may only be April, but it's getting warm in Phoenix!)

The side salad is also very simple: a roma tomato and half an avocado drizzled with lemon juice. It is refreshing and light, and the lemon juice actually made the tomato flavor more apparent, and the avocado brighter.

The shrimp sauce ingredients include olive oil, chili powder and paprika. The shrimp were just coated in this sauce, allowed to sit for about 5 minutes, and then fried in a pan. (My husband just really warms the shrimp since we buy the already cooked and peeled shrimp.) The avocado cilantro salsa ingredients include one half avocado, half a bunch of cilantro, garlic, onion salt, garlic salt, lemon juice and about 2 tablespoons water, all combined in a food processor. Add more lemon juice or water to get your desired consistency.

Easy, simple and extremely flavorful! Enjoy!

Fruit Salad

Doesn't look very appetizing, but, oh, it was yummy!

The weather here in Phoenix has been absolutely gorgeous, sunny and mid-70's. I want to be outside all the time. Also as a result of the warmer temps, my body has moved on from craving warm soups and stews and hot tea. It's just not that cold anymore! (Not that it ever was THAT cold, compared to our friends that had snowstorm after snowstorm!)

Fruit salad fills the meal bill perfectly. I don't have to spend a lot of time in a kitchen getting warm over a stove or oven - you know when it's 110 degrees here, that's the last place I want to be! I made a fruit salad a few nights ago just with stuff I had on hand - no special trip to the store - and thought it was so yummy I had to share this quick, light, healthy recipe.

Hmmm . . . don't have a name for this recipe . . . but here goes anyway!

1 small banana, sliced
1 small fuji apple (or any sweet apple I'm sure would work), chopped
2 heaping tablespoons Ricotta cheese
1 tablespoon Agave nectar
1-2 tablespoons shredded coconut, toasting optional

Combine the first 3 ingredients, stirring to coat the banana and apple with the Ricotta. Drizzle with the Agave nectar and top with the toasted coconut.

The coconut was leftover from a previous dessert. I toasted it by preheating the oven to 350 degrees. I spread the shredded unsweetened coconut on a cookie sheet. Then, I baked the coconut just for about 3-4 minutes until golden brown. I let it cool a little before handling.

Voila! There is a very tasty, easy, quick, simple and healthy fruit salad to whip up on a night or afternoon when you'd rather be outside playing. The Ricotta cheese is made with skim milk, so less fat, and the Agave nectar is supposed to have a lower glycemic index than sugar, so you don't have the highs and lows associated with sugar.

Alright, back outside to play some tennis I go!! :-)