Easy Mango Sauce #recipe @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: It seems to be mango season around Key West. Being a good detective, I make that deduction when I see piles of them at the now weekly farmer's market at Bayview Park. 


The market showcases plenty of great produce, but lots of my favorite vendors are there, too, like Mozzarella Mark and the Pickle Baron. 

And also there's a guy who sells irresistible gumbo, and another stall selling Indian food, and olives and smoothies and all kind of cheese.

Anyway, the piles of mangoes launched me on a mango theme. You might have noticed the sauce I served alongside the almond cake last week. Now here's how to make it. It could not be easier.

Ingredients

1 Mango
1 Tbsp powdered sugar
1 Tbsp orange juice

Peel one ripe mango and cut away the flesh from the weird hard core. Since you are basically pureeing the fruit, you don't have to worry about making it pretty.

Drop the mango into the food processor with 1 tablespoon powdered sugar and 1 tablespoon orange juice. Whirl it until smooth. That's it!

I would serve  this with ice cream, a plain cake, or even mix it with some plain yogurt and voila--smoothie.

Lucy Burdette writes the Key West food critic mystery series.


 Fatal Reservations, the sixth book in the series, will be in bookstores on July 7, but you can certainly order it now!

Hot Pepper Jelly Cheese Puffs @LucyBurdette

 
LUCY BURDETTE:  I have a new obsession in Key West--this is hot pepper jelly made by the Pickle Baron, a local company here on the island. They also make bacon jam (bacon jam!!), and all kinds of pickles.

one of the Pickle Barons

John and I put the jelly on our sandwiches all week--it has just the right smoky heat to raise cold cuts to the next level. Then I remembered of my favorite hors d'oeuvre--a recipe for hot pepper jelly cheese puffs that I got years ago from my good friend Cathy Crook. 

These puffs are positively decadent and delicious. There's one drawback: They look like little thumbprint jam cookies so it takes a while for the party guests to catch on that you're talking cheese, not sugar. Once a few people taste them, however, word spreads like wildfire and the plate will be snatched clean. So gobble a couple before you put them out.


 

HOT PEPPER JELLY CHEESE PUFFS

1/2 lb. sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1 stick butter, softened
1 cup flour
Hot pepper jelly 

Mix the first 3 ingredients until they hold together in a ball--either by hand or using food processor. Wrap in parchment paper or Saran wrap and chill 1/2 hour. 








Roll into small balls (no bigger than an inch thick.) Bake at 400 degrees for five minutes. Remove them from the oven and make depressions in the top of the puffs with the back of a spoon.


Fill with Pickle Baron's Habanero hot pepper jelly (or other jelly, or mild pepper jelly if you can't take the heat.) 

Return puffs to the oven and bake until golden. (5-7 more minutes.) 


 And watch them disappear off the plate!

Lucy writes the Key West food critic mysteries:

 DEATH WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS is here now!

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