Making It Monday--Sundry Edition

I finally got him done.

It's ridiculous when you only have five minutes' worth of work left to do on something but you keep putting off doing it. 

Pshaw.

Whatever. It's done.

What else did I make? I guess I made a proposal. I spent most of my long Easter weekend (I had Friday and today off) working on school stuff. I once again give tremendous thanks to my D.Min. advisor who took time out of her Easter weekend to review my thesis proposal another time or two in the final throes of trying to get it prepared for the review committee. I'm not sure if I actually made their deadline for this month's meeting or not, so it may not actually get reviewed until their May meeting. Still n' all, May is a very busy month for me so I'm just as happy to get it done now. Fingers crossed that, whenever it goes to committee, it passes!

Let me take a moment, though, to list all the things I made this weekend using my Instant Pot! It's time for you to be dropping broad hints about Mother's Day or Father's Day gifts you'd like--or your birthday--or, just plain go shopping yourself. Let me just say it here, if I haven't said it enough times before. I LOVE MY INSTANT POT!

This weekend, I used my IP to:

• Make split pea soup (using my favorite recipe here and great smoked hamhocks from an Amish grocery store)
• Make "baked" potatoes for Easter dinner (30 mins all in)
• Steam green beans for Easter dinner (5 mins all in)

• Make Chocolate Lava cake for Easter dinner dessert (using this really easy and incredibly tasty recipe)
• Make hardboiled eggs for the week (doing them in the IP makes them super easy to peel, regardless of how fresh they are)

• Make my weekly batch of yogurt, and this week's batch is the best one I've made yet. I got the perfect consistency, and I switched to vanilla bean paste, which has a much better flavor than vanilla extract. There's a bunch of instructions for making yogurt in your IP on the internet--it's super, super easy. 

If you're new to IPs, let me suggest the following accessories:

• If you want to make yogurt, it's worth buying a yogurt strainer. I tried the cheesecloth thing and I tried the coffee filter thing and it was messy and a pain in the.... Well, anyway. Since I make it every week, I decided to go ahead and pony up for actual strainers and I'm thrilled. So much easier! I do a gallon of milk's worth of yogurt every week so I bought two strainers. The amount of yogurt fills both strainers to the brim.
• Get two inserts. Really. This way you can rotate stuff through more quickly. I bought my second insert about two weeks after I started using my IP because I discovered just how much I could get done in a weekend to prep for my week ahead.
• These steamer baskets work really well. (There are a lot of them; I linked to the ones I actually use and can speak with authority about.) I use these when I do potatoes, eggs, vegetables, and so forth.
• I took advice from the Facebook IP group early on and got a second silicone ring because the ring does take on the smells of whatever you're cooking. There was a lot of fear voiced in FB about whether those smells would then have an impact on cooking something else. I have to say, though, that in the six months or so I've been using my IP, I've never used the second ring. In my experience, I've had no problems with tastes transferring; washing the ring seems to be good enough. If you're interested, though, here's a link. They also have color-coded ones for "sweet" and "savory."
• Speaking of that Facebook group, here's the main one I'm part of, and you'll notice a few other #Twilters hanging out there too. There are many other electric pressure cooker and IP-specific groups on Facebook as well. It's a great place to get new ideas and recipes!

(This post contains Amazon affiliate links. Thanks for the support!)

Craftsy Class Review: Slow-Cooker Savvy with Michele Scicolone

For awhile there, the only Craftsy classes I had time to do were the cooking ones. After all, a girl's gotta eat even in the midst of writing papers! That being said, this is another class I finished awhile back while snow was still on the ground.

Let me clarify, since we had snow on the ground well into April. I finished Slow-Cooker Savvy: Make Your Best Meals with Michele Scicolone in early February. Just the [normal] season for slow-cookers. Nothing like smelling your dinner cooking all day long when the snow is falling outside your window. (Although by mid-April even the smell of dinner couldn't make me feel any better about that snow. But I digress.)

This was a good class, and I tried several of the recipes out of it. I do have to give you fair warning, though: These are not your typical "dump it in, turn up the dial, walk away" recipes. Some of them take a fair amount of work either before the slow-cooker does its job or after. The Beef and Beer Stew, for example, took me about half an hour to get everything ready just to go in the slow-cooker. (That also didn't turn out to be my favorite recipe, but you may enjoy it.)

I made her White Beans with Sage recipe, although I didn't have any sage so I did thyme and rosemary instead. I used them as a side dish with some other ingredients here and there over a period of days. I intend to use the techniques again with a variety of other beans as I like the idea of having beans on hand to use in other ways.

The Peking Chicken recipe was quite good. My husband even liked it, which is saying something since he approaches any slow-cooked meal with suspicion, plus I used the chicken thighs the recipe called for and he is not a fan of dark meat. This recipe is definitely a keeper. (That being said, I may do chicken breasts next time to cut him some slack.)

For me, the Beef and Beer Stew recipe, maybe not so much of a keeper. I've got other stew recipes I like better. Still, there are several other recipes in this class that I'm looking forward to trying, now that I have time to cook again. (Even the "dump and cook" recipes take too long when I'm on the road more than I'm home!) For example, there's a pulled pork recipe that's intriguing--I want to try it out to see if it beats my others. Hmmm. Maybe this weekend--more time for sewing if the slow-cooker is working for me!

Michele Scicolone is a polished instructor and has written twenty cookbooks--if you dig this class, you can pick up some of her cookbooks and have all sorts of slow-cooked recipes in your repertoire.

The first lesson talks about the varieties of slow-cookers on the market, and gives pros and cons to several of them. I already own three slow-cookers of varying sizes and after watching this lesson, I've started thinking about getting a fourth for some of the very handy features I don't have on any of the others. She also shares some cautions about using older slow-cookers, such as ones you might find at a garage sale. Michele goes through safety concerns and caring for your slow-cooker, as well as how to calibrate the temperature settings.

The rest of the classes walk through different types of meats, side dishes, and "fast slow-cooking" (frittata and creme caramel). In each, she not only talks about the one recipe used to show the technique but also shares substitutions and basic information about considerations you need to keep in mind for cooking that particular type of food using this method.

I don't tend to use my slow-cooker as much in the summer, for some reason, but I think this class may make me adjust my usual habits. After all, there are some great summer salads using beans, and a frittata would be a nice brunch dish. Something to consider, anyway!

The Basics

• 7 lessons ranging from 16 to 30 minutes
• Lesson 1 is an introduction and includes lots of fantastic information about slow-cookers
• Lesson 2 is cooking a whole chicken (which includes good information about how volume affects cooking)
• Lessons 3-5 are various types of meet: chicken pieces, beef, lamb, and pork
• Lesson 6 is side dishes--mashed potatoes, beans, and polenta
• Lesson 7 is "fast slow-cooking," including an egg dish (frittata) and a creme caramel. 
• The class materials include a brief list of some of the slow-cookers she talks about in the class, as well as 12 recipes. 

I did find Slow-Cooker Savvy: Make Your Best Meals with Michele Scicolone very helpful. Recommended!

(Transparency: Using Craftsy links in this post help support my podcast and blog. Thank you!)

Craftsy Class Review: The New Chicken Dinner with Ian Knauer

Time to kick in with the Craftsy class reviews again! This one will make you hungry (unless you're a vegetarian like my daughter: sorry!). If you're a carnivore and are looking for better ways to cook chicken, you really need to check out The New Chicken Dinner with Ian Knauer. I finished this class a few months ago but it's one that I definitely keep going back to the well on. In fact, I just did the rotisserie-style roast chicken again last week (pictured below) and am likely to do it again in the next few days. It's probably become my favorite way to do a roast chicken now. 

For the most part, Knauer addresses fairly common techniques for chicken but he teaches different approaches that just have wonderful results. The rotisserie-style chicken (lesson 2) is really the best dang roast chicken I've ever had, and I've made a lot of roast chicken a lot of different ways! It's incredibly moist with a wonderful crispy skin.... Huh. I may make it for myself for dinner tonight even though no one else will be home. It's pretty easy to do and you can change up the flavors of his recipe really easily.

But let me move on. There's more to the class than an incredible roast chicken. (Although it's worth it just for that!)

Well, wait--let me just do one more picture to make you really get hungry: here's the rotisserie-style chicken cut up and covered with a pan sauce from the class recipe. Wowzer. 

I know I made another recipe from this class but I don't know that I took a picture of it. I remember thinking it was also really good. There are a handful of other recipes and techniques I also want to try. If I could only get that roast chicken out of my head. 

Knauer is an enjoyable teacher to watch--very straightforward, offering lots of great information about substitutions or variations on the techniques in each lesson. There are eight recipes in the class materials but, again, with variations there are dozens more possibilities. The ingredients are all quite normal ingredients, easy to find, and the flavor profiles run from fairly traditional American to Italian to Asian. However, again, the techniques are key: Although he uses an Asian recipe to teach poaching, for example, you can do any flavors you want. 

I highly recommend this class--it'll elevate your every-day chicken to make it feel new!

The Basics

• 8 lessons, ranging from 9 minutes to about 20 minutes
• Lesson 1 gives good information for what to look for in the supermarket and how to store chicken safely.
• Lesson 2 is that really wonderful (have I already said that?) rotisserie-style roast chicken. It also includes information on compound butters and a pan sauce, as well as tips for trussing and carving.
• Lesson 3 is deep-frying. He almost made me want to try it. (I avoid deep-frying for health reasons as well as to avoid a messy clean up!)
• Lesson 4 is searing both bone-in and boneless chicken (this is the one I did but didn't photography--it was great!)
• Lesson 5 is a salt-baking technique that I definitely am going to try at some point; it also includes how to salt-bake vegetables as well.
• Lesson 6 is spatchcocking (or butterflying the whole chicken and grilling with bricks)
• Lesson 7 is braising, using a recipe that creates a ragu for pasta
• Lesson 7 is poaching and torching, with information about cooking rice.
  • Many of the lessons also include carving and plating suggestions.
• The materials include eight recipes, as mentioned above.

The New Chicken Dinner with Ian Knauer is probably one of my top three favorite cooking classes from Craftsy now. (Artisan Bread Making with Peter Reinhart and Homemade Italian Pasta with Giuliano Hazan are two others, although ask me on different days and I'd probably name different ones!) In any case, I definitely, wholeheartedly, recommend this class!

(Transparency: Using Craftsy links in this post helps support my podcast and blog. Thank you!)

CSA Tuesday Week 1

Woot! It's the first week of our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) season. This always feels a bit like Christmas every week--I never know what I'm going to get until I go to pick it up.

This week, we received:

• Four kohlrabi with leaves attached
• A bundle of rhubarb
• Some very pretty garlic scapes 
• A boatload of snap peas
• A boatload of apples

I was a bit surprised by how much there was in the box: This is only a half share or, as they suggested, enough for 2-3 people. The three of us in our house will be sharing it with a couple of other people as well, I think--I'm sending my daughter over to her grandparents' house tomorrow to share a bit of the bounty. Since I don't have time to can and my freezer's pretty small to start with, it's hard for us to prep things for long-term storage. I have yet to buy the vacuum sealer I keep talking about getting. Maybe this weekend I'll finally get out to take care of that.

I know: apples aren't exactly in season in these parts; I believe they're from the farm's cold storage. I already ate one--very yummy. Not sure what type they are--not an Empire or Macintosh, but somewhere in between, sweetness-wise. My daughter and I also dove into the snap peas pretty fast--we both love to eat them raw. 

What I'm thinking I may do:

• Kohlrabi:
  • Kohlrabi and apple slaw: I have a few different recipes in various CSA-related cookbooks I bought in previous years, but I've never tried it. Since I have both kohlrabi and apples, seems like a great way to use two CSA products at once. 
  • Roasted kohlrabi: I'm proud of myself because I'd already been thinking, "I bet that would roast up nicely," and then I saw it in one of my cookbooks. Bingo! Guess I'm figuring out some stuff about this cooking gig.
  • Haven't decided about the leaves yet--maybe a soup?
• Garlic scapes:
  • Garlic scape and potato soup: I'm a big fan of potato soup anyway, so it's not at all a stretch to throw some garlic scapes in there.
  • Stir-fries, of course. 
• Snap peas:
  • Stir-fries, if any of them make it past my daughter and I munching them raw. I'll also probably be sharing these with my MIL--we really do have a lot.
• Rhubarb:
  • I'm pondering a cold strawberry-rhubarb soup. The tough one on this is that I'm the only person in the house that likes rhubarb at all, and I really only like it when it's combined with strawberry and baked into a pie. I cannot be eating pie all by myself. Ahem. I'm thinking I may keep a couple of stalks to play with and then share the rest with my MIL. She loves it.
• Apples:
  • These are easy--we'll mostly just eat them raw although see above reference to the kohlrabi slaw.

Stay tuned to see what actually happens!

If you're curious, here are the cookbooks I got a few years ago when I first started down the CSA road:

(Using these Amazon links does help support this blog, so thanks if you do!)

Craftsy Class Review: Love Your Vegetables with Anna Bullett

Time for another food class review: Love Your Vegetables with Anna Bullett. It's been awhile since I've done a foodie post. However, for this one, I don't have any photos of dishes I've made from the class since I'm holding off trying the recipes until my CSA begins in another couple of weeks. So you'll be hearing more about the recipes themselves later.

I decided to do this class because of the aforementioned CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture. If you're new to my blog, just a short backstory: I've subscribed this summer to a CSA, and deliveries start the second week of June. I've done CSAs two other years but skipped last year because I travel a lot during the summer and was having problems juggling the schedule. This year, I found a CSA much closer to me so doing the weekly pick-up will be a lot easier, and I think I'm getting a smaller share, so it should be easier to keep up with the produce. I don't have time for canning and I have limited freezer space so I really do need to be able to use the produce up the week I get it, as much as possible. That means collecting a ton of vegetable-focused recipes. This class seemed just the ticket.

One of my 2013 CSA pick-ups

Anna Bullett reminds me a bit of Rachel Ray in terms of perkiness. If you love Rachel Ray, you'll probably really enjoy Anna Bullett. 

As a learning experience, it was a good one. Each lesson focused on a particular family of vegetables and, through the recipe or recipes covered in the lesson, Anna gives rationale behind different types of preparations for the vegetable in question. She also gives all sorts of good tips for washing, slicing, and storage. There are several recipes that I'm looking forward to trying when my produce starts rolling in.

Another ghost of CSAs past

Additionally, every lesson except the last includes a "Chef's Tip," or a brief tidbit of additional information about something else you can do with that family of vegetables. These were nice little additions--one of them helped me understand why my attempt at Kale chips a couple of years ago failed miserably. I think I'll be better prepared for the inevitable influx of Kale from the CSA this year. 

If you're looking to expand your repertoire for vegetable dishes--either as a side or a main--I do recommend this class. Just be prepared for the perky.

The Basics

• 8 lessons, ranging from 15 to about 30 minutes; most are in the 15-20 minute range.
• The first lesson starts right out with one of my all-time faves: butternut squash. Generally I want to rush my CSA through to get to fall so I can get my hands on the various forms of winter squash. I'm a fan of pretty much all of them.
• Lesson 2 is root vegetables, lesson 3 "hearty greens" (aka Kale and the like), lesson 4 is Cabbage & Friends (including the very Dr. Seussian Romanesco broccoli)--and included a very helpful tip on keeping your cole slaw from going watery; lesson 5 may convince me to give eggplant another try; lesson 6--the beautiful tomato (yum); lesson 7 is about fava beans which I will likely never buy raw because I don't see myself putting that much work into a bean; and lesson 8 ends with a couple of ways to make easy, quick refrigerator pickles that will definitely be happening in my kitchen at some point this summer.
• The class materials are extensive: 26 pages including 30 recipes. You're basically buying a cookbook with this class. The recipes are all quite do-able, too--only a couple have ingredients you may not already have in your pantry (depending on your fave styles of cooking).
• The recipes are mostly side dishes but there are quite a few that either are, or could easily be, main dishes if you're going meat-free. In my case, there were a couple that I thought we could make vegetarian so my daughter could eat it, and then I could just throw in some diced cooked chicken in my portion to meet my more carnivorous needs. 

Two thumbs up. Basically, Love Your Vegetables with Anna Bullett is just increasing my yearning for Tuesday, June 9, when I get to do my first CSA pick-up of the season. I can't wait to dig in!

(Using Craftsy links on this website helps support my podcast and blog. Thank you!)

Craftsy Class Review: Secrets to Cooking Fish: Eight Essential Techniques with Joel Gamoran

As I've referenced in other posts, my husband and I periodically talk about how we really should eat more fish. I'm a bit iffy on fish in general; I have a few types of fish and a few ways it can be prepared that I can almost say I enjoy. He likes fish better than I do, but it's still not something he really looks forward to. I have been wanting to learn more about different ways to prepare fish (in the ever-diminishing hope I'd ever find something I really, truly loved), so I was thrilled when I saw that Craftsy now has a second class on fish. I had already done Fire up the Fish with David Bonom and enjoyed it (here's my review of that one). So, here's my review of Secrets to Cooking Fish: Eight Essential Techniques with Chef Joel Gamoran.

Joel Gamoran is executive chef at Sur La Table. You can tell he's used to teaching classes--he's very easy to watch: he's dynamic without being over the top, and makes you feel immediately comfortable. One very nice twist to this class is that he brings in a student for each lesson; the student serves as a visual "stand-in" for you as the viewer, of course. It's nice to see someone slicing and chopping as slowly as I might, and giving him the occasional uncertain look. I enjoyed how that made this class feel a bit different from other cooking classes I've done on Craftsy. 

Because he's associated with Sur La Table, there is a certain amount of product placement in this class. And I did almost "bite," so to speak, because my fish spatula is a very cheap one that's not at all flexible when I try to get fish out of the pan, so I tend to end up with crumbly bits on the plate rather than a pretty filet. Still, I decided I'd wait to treat myself to a decent fish spatula for if I ever start cooking fish on a more regular schedule than Once in a Blue Moon.

Each lesson introduces different ways of cooking fish by going through a recipe for that technique. There were only a couple of the recipes that I thought my husband and I would be able to agree on, so I ended up making the Sole with Browned Butter, Lemon and Almonds recipe, although I substituted tilapia for sole. In the grand scheme of fish, I will say I enjoyed this fish more than most, and it was certainly a very easy recipe to throw together on a weeknight. Next time I make it, though, I think I'm going to throw a little Panko crumb on that fish as my husband and I both like our fish to have a bit of a crispier outside. 

On the other hand, by the time it's soaking in that very tasty butter/lemon sauce, you've probably negated the vast majority of the health factor to eating fish in the first place. But that's beside the point.

I did really enjoy the class, despite my half-hearted feelings about the main course. I feel like I understand a little more about fish and what types of fish work best with what kinds of preparations, and I really appreciated his discussion of sustainability in the second lesson; great information there. There was a decent amount of information in regards to blending flavors and what kinds of sauces, salsas, or side dishes work well, although I always wish for more along those lines.

Still n' all, I do really recommend this class. For this non-fish-aficionado (see what I did there?), it was a good class. For someone who actually likes fish, it would be a great class!

The Basics

• 8 classes; absent the 2 1/2 minute introduction of lesson 1, the other 7 range from 14 minutes to 26 minutes.
• Lesson 2 is an excellent overview of types of fish, what to look for when buying fish, and sustainability; it also has a no-cook recipe included.
• Lessons 3-8 go through grilling, roasting, poaching, sauteing and pan-frying, steaming, and curing and smoking. The recipes range in complexity but none are very difficult--they're all quite achievable by the average home cook. Some excellent tips for testing for doneness and how to slice and serve certain fish dishes are also useful.

I can't allow my two-thumbs-sideways attitude about fish to color my review of Secrets to Cooking Fish: Eight Essential Techniques with Chef Joel Gamoran, so I'm giving the class two thumbs up. And if you act fast, it's on sale right now!

(Using Craftsy links in this post helps support this podcast and blog. Thank you so much!)

Craftsy Class Review: Fire up the Fish with David Bonom (and a recipe!)

I'm ready to review my next class! Welcome to Fire up the Fish with David Bonom.

I'm trying to overcome a lifetime aversion to seafood. I grew up eating fresh perch (and sunnies and croppies) out of Lake Ontario, filleted and fried in cornmeal. Other than that, I've really not been a fan of anything coming out of the water. Over the last 10 years I've been trying a lot more varieties of fish, and have begun to nearly like some of them. I'm still not a fan of shellfish of any kind--and believe me, I've tried most of them. Shrimp--well, that's just nasty. (And yes, I've tasted a few preparations. Couldn't get through any of them.) My husband's family is big into clambakes. Can't do it. The only way I'll eat a clam is if it's heavily battered and fried--basically once it's a vehicle for the batter, I can live with it. My theory is that I have a sister who's deathly allergic to shellfish so my DNA has a genetic aversion. That's my story and sticking to it.

So determined to try one of Bonom's recipes, I thumbed my nose at the rain and grilled anyway.

David Bonom, however, made me want to start throwing all sorts of fish on the grill. He still couldn't make shrimp look good to me but to those of you who like shrimp already, you'd probably be into what he does with those. The same goes for his lesson on lobster tails--not my thing, but for those of you who already like lobster, your mouths would probably be watering.

Mind you, this is a technique class, not so much a recipe class. He does give the recipes for every preparation he uses, but he only briefly talks about possible variations or how to create your own recipes, which I'd hoped would be more prevalent. But I got so much inspiration it ultimately doesn't matter.

The class was tremendously inspirational for me. We hadn't ever tried to grill a fish at our house but after watching the lessons all the way through, I was chomping at the bit.

Swordfish on the grill, just starting out.

And, most notably, I was ready to try a fish I'd never been brave enough to order in a restaurant before: swordfish. He made it look so good in the class, I had to give it a go!

Armed with what he'd said to look for in a good, fresh, piece of swordfish, I took a quick jaunt out to my grocery store and found two smaller swordfish fillets that had all the qualities he said to look for and none of the ones he said to avoid.

I also got all fancy on its butt. Although I stuck to his recipe for the dry rub, I decided it called for a little fruit salsa, so I was making up a recipe as I wandered through the produce section. I'll post my recipe at the end--it turned out very tasty.

The fish was really quite simple. I've done enough grilling, and enough dry rubs, to be confident on both counts. I had picked up some useful tips from his classes, though, and had absolutely no problem with my swordfish steaks sticking at all.

I even followed his suggestions for how to get the best grill marks. Mighty pretty, if I do say so myself.

This being my first time out of the gate with (1) grilling fish and (2) working with swordfish, I overcooked it just a hair. I should've pulled it off the grill maybe just one or two minutes sooner. It tasted fine, but it was a little on the dry side. Not too much of a problem, though, since I had my fruit salsa nicely freshening things up. And the end result is that I really, really liked it. I'll definitely be doing this one again.

Pretty grill marks! Or, grill hashtags, for you #twilters out there.

Back to the class. David Bonom was very easy to watch. It is important to remember, as I said before, that it's primarily a technique class. Although he does give plenty of recipes and talks a little here and there about possible variations and substitutions, he spends most of his time talking about the actual grilling--starting with a little discussion of the difference between charcoal and gas grills and setting up for the right temperature, he moves into how to prep the fish, how to prep the grill, what to watch for in terms of doneness, different tools and equipment (baskets, foil, etc.), how to check for temperature, and troubleshooting. The class goes from different types of fillets to whole fish to shellfish, and also includes fish cakes.

Not only do I feel a lot more confident about grilling fish, I feel a lot more confident about cooking fish in general and will more easily be able to tackle it in my kitchen when grill season is over.

The Basics:

• 10 lessons. Absent the first that's just a brief intro of about 1 minute, the rest range from about 3 1/2 minutes to 12 1/2 minutes. Short as they are, though, they're packed with good information.
• Lessons include: Setting up the Grill; Fish Steaks & Firm Fillets; Tender Fillets; Whole Sides; Whole Fish; Shellfish without the Shell; Shellfish in the Shell; Fish Cakes; Troubleshooting.
• Included in those lessons are discussions of dry rubs; marinades; stuffing; using baskets, skewers, and foil packets; how to test for doneness; and what to do if your fish cake falls apart on the grill. (!)

I enjoyed this class a whole lot more than I thought I would. Although I'm posting this review after only doing one type of fish, I already have plans for a couple more from the class. I'm ready!

Again, that's Fire up the Fish with David Bonom. Two thumbs way up!

Finished product--grilled swordfish with mango peach salsa (and roasted baby potatoes)

Addendum:

Sandy's Mango Peach Salsa

(Amounts for two or three people)

Ingredients:

• 1 T butter
• Half a Mayan sweet onion (or any sweeter onion), diced
• 1 clove garlic
• Half a mango, peeled and diced
• One peach, peeled and diced
• a few tablespoons of balsamic vinegar--tropical flavor if possible*
• Dash of salt

Directions: Saute the onion in butter until starting to caramelize. Add garlic and saute for about 30 seconds (don't burn the garlic). Add in the mango and peach and saute with other ingredients just to incorporate. Add balsamic vinegar, stir through, then turn heat to low and reduce the vinegar by about half or to taste, stirring occasionally. Add a little salt to taste. Serve over fish. Leftovers could be chilled and used for other things--like maybe over vanilla ice cream for dessert...nummy.

*I used one named Sunny Pineapple Balsamic Vinegar that was quite tasty. If you don't have a flavored vinegar, use a good balsamic--preferably white balsamic so the fruit doesn't look dirty--and then consider squeezing fresh lime or fresh lemon juice into the mix.

Need help knowing how to deal with a mango? Check this video out.