Jerk Shrimp & Mango Pineapple Salad

    Hello!

   How was the weekend? I had such a fabulous birthday party on Friday evening! I felt so blessed by my friends, and it was good to have them all (mostly) here. Our house looked like some wild high-school rager had swept through it though! When I finally went to bed at 3am (eek!), I saw there were plates and cups strewn about the yard, fruit flies on every bit of sticky dessert stuck here and there, and a mountain of plastic cutlery to wash! I blame the first 2 on all the (wonderful) little children who were here, and the utensils on my extreme need to recycle (I can use plastic utensils over and over people!). The best part though? I had an art sale & show on Saturday that I needed to leave the house early for, so I didn't have to do any of the next day cleaning!!! Woo hoo!!! My amazing husband and kids had this house shining like the top of the Chrysler building by the time I got home!!! That's pretty much the best birthday gift ever! 

   Anyway, let's move on to food!

   I saw a great recipe for Jerk Chicken with Mango Pineapple Salsa over at Paleo Newbie and it looked so good! I rarely (rarely rarely!) buy chicken breasts, and was going to try this with bone-in chicken, but had another thought. Shrimp. Yes, spicy shrimp, a cool refreshing mango & pineapple salad over a big bed of salad and veggies. It sounded so good and wanted to give it a try! 

Jerk Shrimp & Mango Pineapple Salad
Makes 2 huge servings. Also, it seems like there a a million steps, but really, it's not so bad! 
Adapted from Paleo Newbie


Ingredients for everything!:

For the shrimp:

• 2 Tsp dried onion
• 1/2 Tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 Tsp all spice
• 1/2 Tsp chilli seasoning
• 1 Tbs honey
• 2 Tbsp lime juice
• 1/4 cup coconut aminos (you could omit this if you don't have any)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 tbs apple cider vinegar
• 3 Cups shrimp (any size you like), the peeled & cooked kind, thawed

Mango Pineapple Salsa & Salad:

• 1 ripe mangos, peeled, pitted, and cut up. You can dice it small, or cut bigger pieces (that's what I do)
• 1 Cup cut up pineapple (I like 1 inch pieces)
• 1 Ripe avocado, cut into 1 inch pieces

• 1/2 medium red onion, finely chopped
• 2-3 Jalapeño peppers, minced (include ribs and seeds for a hotter taste if that's your thing)-you can use more of less depending on your taste
• 1 red pepper (or any bell pepper), diced
• 3 Tbsp fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
• 2 limes, juiced
• Salt and pepper to taste

For the salad dressing & salad:

• 2 Tbsp dijon mustard
• 2 Tbsp maple syrup or honey
• 1/4 Cup olive oil
• 1/4 Cup apple cider vinegar
• 4 Cups washed and cut salad. We generally use 70% romaine and 30% "tender leaves" like baby spinach, arugula, baby green romaine, etc. (usually from a Dole clamshell mix). You can also just use all romaine, or ice burg if you prefer. But don't use all tender leaves as they aren't a strong enough bed for the salsa and shrimp, if that makes any sense! :)  

Methods:


First prep the shrimp:

1. Mix all ingredients for the shrimp marinade together in a large bowl or large Ziploc bag. Add shrimp and mix then let sit and marinate while making the mango pineapple salsa

Now the mango pineapple salsa: 

1. Combine all the ingredients for the salsa together in a bowl and toss to coat, then cover and set aside 

Now prep your salad

1. In a large bowl add all the ingredients for the salad dressing and whisk to combine
2. Add into the bowl any veggies you want for your salad. I generally use (all diced), half a cucumber, half a sweet bell pepper, a whole tomato, and a handful of shredded cabbage. You can also just use lettuce and skip the extra veg! 
3. Add the salad to the bowl (adding the stronger leafed lettuce first), but DO NOT toss yet!

Meanwhile...back to the shrimp (p.s. you can always skip this step if you'd rather have the shrimp cold!):

1. Heat a skillet over medium heat, or use a grilling basket on your bbq and heat to medium (ish. I know heating things on the bbq can be finicky)
2. Once the pan or grilling basket is hot, add a touch of oil, or spray with oil, then add the shrimp and quickly heat and get some colour on them. This should take less than 5 minutes if your pan or grilling basket was nice and hot

Put it all together!:

1. Now go ahead and toss your readied salad!
2. Divide the salad between 2 bowls
3. Top each salad with half the mango pineapple salsa 
4. Divide the shrimp over the 2 salads

Dinner time!!!  :)  

   So, yes, it may seem like the longest list of ingredients and steps ever, but it is honestly a pretty simple recipe. It's really forgiving too; if you don't have all of the ingredients for each part, as long as you have most of them, it'll still be super tasty. Don't want to cook the shrimp? Then don't (remember it's the pre-cooked kind)! Want to use your own salad dressing? Then go for it! Just look at this all as a starting point, and you can get creative. As long as you have a nice, spicy shrimp, and the cool (with a bite) mango pineapple salsa, you'll be good to go. You could even just mix those 2 together as a salad on their own if you wanted! 

   Alright, well, I need to get moving! It was a long weekend of late nights, and the kids were up each a few times last night for some ridiculous reason or another ("I lost my bracelet!", "where's my water bottle?", "where's Diana?"(a doll), "I need you to tuck me back in!"). Good grief Charlie Brown.....So, I'm feeling tired, got a bit of a headache, and I know if I don't stand up soon and move, I'll just melt into a tired puddle! Oh, and it's raining, so even the weather is trying to trick me into doing nothing today! 

   Have a wonderful day! See you next time!

   Oh, and super randomly, last night while on Pinterest I noticed I mis-spelled the word "chocolate" on one of my images with a title....but I was too tired to deal with it...now I can't remember which recipe it was! Help me find it! I'm so embarrassed that it's out there in the WWW (and on this blog) with "chocolate" spelled incorrectly! Aaahhhhhh! Home-schoolers nightmare!!! Hahaha....I am a little dramatic, but I am seriously embarrassed!