A Mouth full of Excitement

Even though it is somewhat rare for us to repeat dishes, we have enjoyed this salad so many times.  It is actually a Rick Bayless recipe from his cookbook "Mexican Everyday".  We love Rick's style and Mexican food consistently ranks as a favorite of ours.  This salad really packs a flavor punch making it hard to resist.  

The elements that make this up in combination with each other really can't be beat.  Along with greens of your choosing, mango and avocado are key players, and smoked salmon makes it a perfect light dinner that is good any time of year.  Rick suggests bacon instead of the salmon, but since we LOVE smoked salmon, we always use it...but sometimes yield to the temptation to crumble a piece or two of bacon over the top!  

The real show stopper here is the bright and lively dressing.  The first step is pan toasting pepitas, or green raw pumpkin seeds.   This is not only the lovely base of this punchy dressing, but a good time all by itself!  You put these little devils in the hot pan and if you are into this sort of thing, you can stand with your face in pretty close and watch them go from flat to almost round.  Cheap thrills for the easily entertained.....we love it!

After the pepitas are puffed and toasty we remove them and add olive oil to the pan, along with whole garlic cloves and a jalepeno.  Once the garlic and jalepeno are softened, they are added along with the oil to a blender with lime juice, salt, honey.....and some of the pepitas.  This is whizzed up and the resulting dressing is creamy, spicy and delicious.  It is a great idea to make a little more of this than you will need for the salad because you can immediately see that it would be good on or in anything!  The salad is topped with more of the pepitas for a little crunch and cheese (queso fresco or feta) is optional, but it really doesn't need it.  This one is a keeper and we find ourselves craving it like clockwork about once a month.....maybe dinner tomorrow night......?