Mango salsa tastes like summer! #recipe #mystery @abbottmysteries

By Victoria Abbott aka Mary Jane and Victoria Maffini

We’re having a hot and humid early summer in these parts.  Salads and no-cook meals are the way to go.  And mangoes are showing up in the grocery store. How perfect is that?  We’re dusting off our recipe for Mango Salsa and preparing for a refreshing dinner on the screened porch. 

This recipe is great with chicken, hot or cold, and with fish, surprisingly enough. It’s sweet as well as savory, easy too and full of such good things that you can feel virtuous while enjoying it.

 

 Mango Salsa

All you need is:

2 medium mangoes, ripe

1 red pepper, chopped

¼ cup finely chopped red onion

1 lime

¼ cup chopped cilantro and some leaves for decoration

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

Dash of hot sauce

½ tsp sea salt

All you do is:

Chop pepper and red onion.  Chop cilantro.  Combine peppers and cilantro and red onion in a bowl.

Prepare mangoes by cutting in three parts (the pit in the middle). Reserve that. Score the inside of each of the parts.  Press outside in and cut off mango. It will be perfectly diced. 

 

Add to bowl.  And gently mix to combine.

 

Squeeze the juice from the lime.

Place olive oil, cider vinegar, lime, salt and hot sauce into a small bowl and whip with a wire whip until smooth. 

 Add dressing to salsa and blend to cover all the yummy ingredients.  Enjoy in your most summery locations.  If there's any left, it will be even better the next day,

You can get it HERE

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If you missed our post two weeks ago, here’s a picture of the award design.

 

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Shrimp with mango mayonnaise: what's not to love?

A summer idea from Victoria Abbott here (aka Victoria and Mary Jane Maffini). 

It’s late in summer and we get tired of eating the same old same old, so when old friends were coming for lunch on a steaming hot day, we gave shrimp and mango mayonnaise a try. 

Shrimp with Mango Mayonnaise

For the shrimp base:

1 lb jumbo shrimp, cooked, drained, chilled.

1 avocado, peeled and cubed

½ Spanish onion (or other sweet onion) diced very fine.  (we will try this with finely sliced green onion the next time)

Juice of half a lime

For the mango mayonnaise

2 egg yolks

¼ cup best quality olive oil

¼ cup canola

Juice of half a lime

1 mango

Pinch of salt

2 green onions, green part only, sliced fine

Assembly:

Put the shrimp into a bowl,. Add the avocado cubes and the onion. Pour the lime juice over and mix, to get the lime juice everywhere.  Cover and chill.

To make the mayo:

Put the eggs yolks into the bowl of a food processor and turn it on. Add the olive oil one drop at a time (use a teaspoon for control).  Add the canola oil in a steady stream.  Make sure it’s being incorporated.  

When thick and creamy, add the lime juice. 

Peel and cube the mango.  Note the clever way that The Hubster discovered on how to do this in the series of photos below. 

It will be juicy, so do this on or near a plate.

Add the mango cubes and juice to the mayonnaise and pulse until blended. 

Some of us liked the mayo with the green onion on top. Others liked it straight. You can work that out.  

  

Serve the shrimp on a bed of lettuce or mixed greens and drizzle mayo on top 

or as a dip.  

This salad was a hit and our guests declared it ‘blogworthy!

When we find and test a recipe like this (modified from another English cookbook that has been waiting years for an outing), and we like the results enough to add them to the family favorites, we feel it’s something to celebrate.

Speaking of celebrating, we're celebating the coming arrival of The Wolfe Widow, the third in our book collector mystery series. It will be out on September 2nd!

 

That’s less than two weeks and Walter can't wait to be in print again, but we are crazy excited. 

Especially as you can   Pre-order it here! 

That also makes us happy!

Shrimp tacos for a summer meal: because you’re worth it

From Victoria Abbott aka Mary Jane and Victoria Maffini

First of all, a HUGE thank you to everyone who commented and posted pix during our Fifth Anniversary fun and frolicking.  We are so lucky to have you wonderful readers and friends, to say nothing of pets.  Big hugs all 'round.

Beep, beep, beep. Krista interrupts with the WINNERS of the Photo Contest!
Your submissions to our photo contest astonished and delighted us. We laughed and we smiled. We were jealous of our books having fun! You were so clever and original. We loved every single one of them! Next time, we're going to make you choose the winners. It was hard! We thank each and every one of you. Each of us had favorites that didn't win. The list is actually quite long. And in the end, some of the pictures were so close that we decided to make a list of runners-up, each of whom will receive one book. Congratulations to all of the winners, and our most heartfelt thanks to everyone who submitted a photo!

The winners of a Mystery Lovers' Kitchen tote bag and seven books are:

One of our books with a cat - Sandy Long, Sarah the Kitty

One of our books with a dog - Colleen Blackmore, Soufflé Takes the Cake 

One of our books having summer fun - Becky Prazak, Hayley Upgrades

One of our books in a library - Kimberly Sams, Quiet As a Mouse in the Library

One of our books in a bookstore - Cathy Moscariello, Love These Mystery Ladies

Runners-Up

Elaine Klingbeil, Having Summer Fun!

Linda MacDonald, Sandy Loved Murder, She Barked

Anne VanderHaeghen, The Cat’s Day of Summer

Missy Schwebach, Heidi in the Library

Margaret Rushton, Summer Fun

Elisa Varey, Peering In To See

Lynn Gietz, Decisions, Decisions

Amy Newman Connolley, Cappi’s Favorite Way to Relax

Back to Victoria!

But now we're hungry.  We love summer meals and we’ve been grilling our happy heads off here, but sometimes you feel like something different, but still summery.  MJ has been exploring ideas for shrimp tacos for a while and collecting various recipes.  Too bad every one either had an ingredient we didn’t have or couldn’t get or didn’t like.  So this recipe is a real blend of ideas, plus some of our own favorite ways of doing things.  It also has ingredients we almost always have on hand.  

Because of those complicated origins, we were worried about how it would taste. Needlessly worried, it turned out.  We loved the results and will definitely revisit shrimp tacos again and again.  

You will need: 

Four 8-inch tortillas (could be larger!)

2 tablespoons butter

2 green onions, white and green parts, sliced

1 pound peeled raw large shrimp (frozen is fine)

1 tsp sugar

2 tablespoons prepared (squeeze tube) parsley

½ cup sliced sweet red peppers (we used sweet African peppers)

1/8 tsp cayenne

½ iceberg lettuce, shredded (or sliced)

Small package goat cheese with herbs, crumbled

1 avocado, peeled and diced

½ cup chopped cilantro (optional)

Fresh ground pepper

All you do is:

Make the tacos.  Okay you can just use the tortillas as is, but if you really want tacos and don’t have shells or want a more natural shell, you can do this: 

Preheat your oven to 375. Brush the four tortillas with light oil (we used canola oil) or light spray.  Drape tortillas one by one over rack in oven, shaped to make a taco. 

 

 Bake for 7 or 8 minutes until crispy. We didn’t think this would work, and they weren't as regular as a purchased taco, but they were delicious!   We left them in for a couple of minutes with the oven off, to crisp ‘em a bit more.  Just keep an eye on them.

While they’re cooling off on a plate, make your filling:

Melt butter in a large sauté or frying pan and sauté onion for three to five minutes until wilted and smelling great. Add shrimp and sugar and cook for three minutes until just pink. Don’t overcook or it will become rubbery. 

Stir in peppers, cayenne and parsley.  Heat through about two minutes.  Add ground pepper to taste.  This will all smell wonderful.   Just about done!

Top your taco with lettuce, add filling and then add goat cheese, avocado and cilantro.  

 

No elbows. There’s plenty for everyone. Some people around here don’t like cilantro, so it’s optional.  

Next time we will try this with sour cream instead of goat cheese. Today, it was one of those ingredients we didn’t have. The goat cheese was terrific too, but we are more likely to have sour cream on hand. 

You can change this to suit yourself, but the sautéed shrimp mixture would be hard to beat. Just sayin’. 

 

Eat up and enjoy your summer meal!  Have we mentioned that it's messy?  Don't try it on a first date. 

But you know, these tacos are not the only thing we're really really excited about. 

 

 The Wolfe Widow, the third in our book collector mystery series, will hit the shelves and e-readers on September 2nd.   We'll get dressed up to launch the book and  Peachy the Pug (aka Walter) will put on her party dress.  She likes the dress. It's the camera that worries her.

 If you just can't wait to read Jordan and Vera's latest adventures in the dangerous (yet amusing) world of book collecting, why not Just click here to PRE-ORDER

Or, if you don't scare easily: Watch the trailer