Mojo Butter Lettuce Salad

For some reason I was craving butter lettuce, so I grabbed a bag from TJs, threw on a scoop of nonfat Greek yogurt, and crumbled chips from Late July's mojo green multigrain chips (with cheese and a hint of lime). This was very much like a taco salad in my opinion, with the chips imparting most of the flavor, the yogurt standing in as sour cream, and the lettuce adding its two cents. So no meat I guess.

I love Late July, along with brands like Kashi and Nature's Path... Actually, the only reason I bought these chips at all was because I was on a quest to find green-colored chips for an upcoming St. Patrick's Day potluck. I wasn't having much luck until I stumbled on these at Whole Foods for $1.50 per bag on sale, which was not bad. I snagged a couple of bags. Afraid that it may not be green enough, I also bought the veggie flavor of the Pirate's Booty rice/corn snacks since an employee there could vouch for the snacks being green. Of course, later I found the stupid green tortilla chips I'd been looking for all along at Ralphs (guacamole-flavored green chips) so I decided I could eat these mojo things myself. Haha! Of course later, I found even more green chips (spinach and artichoke potato chips) which I bought as well. When it rains, it pours...

Lemongrass Pork and Wilted Lettuce

We made this lemongrass marinade with some dried lemongrass (I didn't have the fresh stalks on hand), olive oil, soy sauce, and garlic. We didn't have fish sauce so we just dropped it. The pork was then pan-fried with some lettuce thrown in at the end. The lemongrass flavor was definitely there although more subtle than I'd imagined (probably due to the fact that we used dried rather than fresh lemongrass). The pork needed some tenderizing, in terms of consistency, but we were satisfied with the taste. Yay!

Boiled Cactus With Garlic

I love trying new things (when I'm not lazy that is), and this cactus is one such example. We decided to just go simple and boil these. My friend wanted to throw in garlic as it boiled, which seemed like a good idea to me. So the texture was a bit like okra as far as the slipperiness. It tasted kind of tangy and refreshing... light.   It worked very well with the lemongrass flavors we had as part of our meal. After googling around a bit, I believe this is called "nopal" (plural being nopales), and they can be used in a variety of ways, from salads to egg dishes. Here's the basic Wiki page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nopal) but if you google for nopal recipes, you will see a slew of them...

Cactus

¡Muy interesante! My friend managed to find this package of cactus at a local Food 4 Less, much to my surprise. So I went on to learn that cactus is apparently as much a staple in Mexican cuisine as something like green beans or cauliflower is in the states. I would never have imagined that. It's curious that I've never been exposed to cactus in any of the Mexican food I've had, all these years. Without having stumbled across this tidbit of new knowledge, I would have thought that cactus would have to be found at some upscale market and served in gourmet restaurants! More on the actual taste etc. in the next post...

Celery With Sunflower Seed Butter

After watching a coworker munch on celery with peanut butter, I was inspired to do likewise with some leftover celery stalks and this sunflower seed butter I'd picked up from Trader Joes. For someone who doesn't really care for raw celery, this was very addicting (probably due to how much seed butter I smeared on each piece!). Next time, I will do this again but using that roasted almond butter with flaxseed. Can't wait!