This recipe came about from being freshly back from Costa Rica and craving the flavors of my dinners there. Alas, even though we usually are at the end of the season some phenomenal mangoes this time of year at the grocery, all the mangoes had been there just a little too long, so I skipped on buying any and decided instead to play with some frozen mangoes which I generally have on hand to see what flavors I could come up with. Since I still had some amazing butter lettuce, I decided to make a vinaigrette with mango flavor, adding some fresh mint from my backyard. The result was a dressing so good I could have simply drank it, but instead I made a butter lettuce salad one day, then the next a wild rice pilaf with chopped veggies and chicken sausage which I stuffed into butter lettuce wraps and dressed with the vinaigrette. Needless to say, those wraps went quick, as did the rest of the dressing! (more…)

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Condiments by Courtney

Let’s just preface this post by saying I’ve always hated pickles. Not just disliked, but hated in that “oh my god I’m so grossed out by this thing” way that you can hate a food. In high school someone taunted me by waving a pickle in my direction (of the food variety, let’s not let our minds end up in that track!). I immediately, without hesitation, slugged her as hard as I could. Hmmm, anger issues much?

Anyhow, fast forward to the present-day, calm-cool-semi-collected Courtney, who last year in her CSA received a pound of pickling cucumbers. Not one to throw away good food, I decided I would attempt to pickle the things, and at the least I could push them off on my husband and friends. I dug in, searching my favorite sites for pickle recipes, hoping to come across something that didn’t include dill. After all, if I’m going to spend the time in the kitchen, I would like to at least try the thing I make. Not being a fan of dill or pickles, I can’t imagine bringing such a thing near my tongue.

Then I stumbled upon it – the Sriracha pickle! Sriracha = something I love. Pickle = something I hate. (more…)

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Condiments, Dairy free, Gluten free, Prep for Later Use, Vegetarian by Courtney

As soon as I saw this recipe on Food In Jars, I knew I had to make it. I had quite a few roma tomatoes, and while I initially had set them aside to make massive amounts of pizza and pasta sauce, I was really, really dreading peeling that many tomatoes.

Enter the Tomato Jam recipe. Tomatoes, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and red pepper. Those ingredients alone sounded too good to be true. But the kicker was definitely this line, which was like poetry to my ears: “It needs the skin and seeds, to keep things interesting. Don’t take them out.” (more…)

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Appetizers, Condiments, In the Garden, Prep for Later Use, Vegetarian by Courtney

A while back I stumbled upon a picture of The Hungry Texan’s pickled jalapenos on YumSugar. Hers were very festive – a great mix of green and red, perfect for holiday gift giving – and I’ve been thinking about them ever since. Putting away some jalapeno peppers for football season would be awesome – nachos here I come! So that’s exactly what I did, following her recipe to a tee, scaling down a bit since I didn’t have nearly enough jalapenos.

While mine aren’t as pretty (not enough red peppers) I’m sure they’ll be tasty come nacho time. (more…)

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Condiments, Dairy free, Gluten free, Prep for Later Use, Vegan, Vegetarian by Courtney