These days have been warmer than usual, and I felt the heat especially intense because my A/C was broken for five days, including the holiday, and I –working from home- have been literally melting, with all the windows open and no intention to cook anything in the stove. This, as you may imagine, can be problematic if you are a food blogger, like I am, and need to be cooking stuff all the time!
Talking to my mother about this over the phone, got her inspired to create a dish for these hot Spring and Summer days. As soon as I mentioned what was going on, she knew what she wanted to prepare (that’s how the head of a chef works!), ran to the grocery store, bought chicken legs and breasts, some vegetables, charcoal, and decided to prepare grilled chicken with a tropical salad. She lives in an apartment that doesn’t have a grill, but once she has a recipe idea in her mind, nothing stops her…and certainly not that little detail. The first thing she made, back home, was to marinate the chicken in a Ziploc bag. Carefully, she sprinkled a little coarse salt on the chicken pieces, put them in the bag, and added an amazing ingredient that we have recently discovered: World Harbors Lemon Pepper & Garlic Marinade and Sauce. So easy to use! She just closed the bag and stored it in the fridge to give enough time for the chicken to infuse with the flavors of the marinade. In the meantime, she prepared a salad with all her favorite Latin American comfort foods. She packed the salad, the chicken, a bottle of iced water, forks and knives, and her ever-present camera, and headed to the park!
Lighting the fire and getting everything ready was just a matter of minutes. Then, after the chicken was patted dry, and the marinade discarded, she began to cook, and used more of the bottled marinade to baste the chicken to keep it moist. After about 30 minutes, lunch was ready!
I wish I had been there to enjoy the outdoorsy day with her, eating that nourishing meal full of color and flavor. There’s something magical about eating between greenery and silence, don’t you agree? Now I know exactly what to do for lunch on those extremely hot summer days. If you want to try my mom’s recipe, follow the instructions above for the chicken, and to make the beautiful salad, here’s how:
2 cups cooked black beans –or kidney beans, or garbanzo beans… your choice- (canned is fine)
1 cup grape tomatoes, quartered
1 cup avocado, chopped
1 cup fried ripe plantain, chopped
¼ -1/2 cup red onion, finely diced
2 tablespoons parsley leaves, chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, finely chopped (optional)
Lime juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper
Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, season, and mix carefully. Put in the fridge.
Once you go to the store and buy your World Harbors marinade, make sure you check the bottle because you could be one of the lucky six people to get the Golden Label which means you’ve won an exotic vacation to either Maui, Fiji, Tahiti, Cabo, New England or a trip for a tropical cruise!
Another chance to win big with World Harbors can be found on their Facebook page via the Adventure sweeps where the Grand Prize winner will received two roundtrip plane tickets and a runner up will get a $500 gift card for a weekend getaway hotel stay. Click here to enter that sweeps.
May the summer fun begin already!!
Disclosure: This post is part of a sponsored series to develop recipes using Mizkan products. All opinions are our own.
This salad looks delicious! I made a yummy strawberry, pecans, arugula and balsamic salad today .
That sounds amazing, too!
Que colorida y deliciosa se ve esa ensalada, de todas maneras la prepararé en mi sgte. parrillada con mis amigas del edificio, donde cada una lleva algo!!! que alucinación la combinación de sabores, felicitaciones por esta receta tan original!!!
Wow! I can only said: I want to cook it this recepies!! This salad could be great for my garden bbq friends meeting! thanks…I am sure it will be a succes
Me parece una ensalada fuera de serie !! y no hay nada mejor que una combinacion de colores en las comidas saludables… Me provoca hacerla en mi casa la proxima vez que tengamos una reunion con nuestros amigos… gracias Morena por compartirla !!
I think is a salad out of this world! and there is nothing better than a combination of colors in healthy foods… I’ll do it the next time in my house and share with our friends … Morena thanks for sharing!
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