Hi there bloggies:

Just a quick post to catch you up on some culinary stuff. In sad news, Marion Cunningham passed away last week. I was heart broken when I heard the news via NPR on my way home from work. Click here to read a lovely obituary from the NYTimes. I love her book, The Breakfast Book and if you do not already have it – I highly recommend it to you. I will have to make a recipe out of it this week in her honor.

The mango and black bean salad was a huge hit this weekend! A little went a long way and ended up making a huge amount of this salad. I think I am going to make it a lot more often now that I’ve created it. Here is a recipe for you:

Mango and black bean salad:

ingredients:

one mango (peeled, sliced and chopped)

1 can of black beans (rinsed and drained)

1 cucumber (seeded and diced)

1 red pepper (seeded and diced)

red onion (chopped – this is optional, but it does add a lot of flavor)

cilantro (rinsed and chopped)

the juice of 1 – 2 limes

Prepare all of the indigents as specified, and toss in a large container with a lid. Shake and serve! If you are using a low sodium bean, you could add salt – but I did not. You could also add freshly ground pepper. But for the first time I made the salad, I let the fresh flavors stand on their own. It was delicious and received a lot of compliments.

Last night I went to a family cook out. I was in charge of dessert. I brought some carrot cake cupcakes, but I was not sure if I would have enough to go around so I had to come up with something else. I was short on time and it was too hot to bake. I picked up another mango, three peaches, some Eddy’s slow churned vanilla bean ice cream and a “loaf” of angel food cake. I sliced and chopped the mango and peaches (leaving the skin on the peaches but peeling the mango) and cut up the angel food cake. Each bowl had a thin slice of angle food, two scoops of fresh fruit and a scoop of ice cream on top. It was a really refreshing summer dessert! Why didn’t I take a photo??? I will be making it again, so I will snap a shot next time – I promise.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Monday! More later tonight.

Stay cool, bunnies!