Roasted Corn, Mango, & Jicama Salad

Sunday we celebrated Kristina's birthday. I grilled some steak, which turned out fantastic, and made a salad I found recently, a roasted corn, mango, and jicama salad. I have been buying jicama lately and was looking up more recipes for using jicama.This one sounded really good and I thought it would go well with steak. Everyone loved it, especialy Kristina who asked if she could take some home. It was really easy to make. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• 4 ears fresh corn, unshucked
• 1 large jicama, peeled and thinly julienned
• 1 ripe mango, peeled and chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro leaves
• Citrus vinaigrette, recipe follows

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Put the ears of corn on a baking sheet and place in the oven for 45 minutes. Remove and let cool. When the corn has cooled, shuck it and stand it on end. Using a sharp knife, run the blade down the cob to cut the kernels off. Rotate the cob and repeat until all the kernels have been cut off.
Combine the jicama, mango, red onion and cilantro in a large mixing bowl. Add the cooled corn, and toss with the vinaigrette. Chill until ready to serve.

Citrus Vinaigrette:

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest
2 teaspoons sugar
Dash hot sauce
1 cup olive oil
Salt pepper
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro leaves
In a large bowl combine the lime juice, orange juice, orange zest, sugar and hot sauce. Whisk together and slowly add the olive oil, whisking as you go. Add salt and pepper, to taste, and cilantro and whisk until combined.

Cape May

When we picked up Tyler in New Jersey we stayed with the most awesome family - the Zetlins. I will have to write more in detail about our trip but one of the days I had designated for New Jersey, Sister Zetlin suggested we go to Cape May. OMG, I want to go back there so much on vacation. It is gorgeous and the beach is really nice. It is the oldest beach resort. Check out the website http://www.capemaycity.com/. I took video so do not have any pictures. We drove out to a lighthouse and walked out on the beach. Tyler of course could not swim but we did wade in the water tyring to scrape up shells and Cape May diamonds, which are these rocks, that when polished, become clear like diamonds. They make jewellery out of them that you can purchase. So, since we did not want to get wet we rolled our pants up and tried to run out and grab a handful of shells and rocks before the wave came in. It was really tricky and I'm usually pretty quick but both Tyler and me got drenched by a wave because we got tempted trying to grab a huge shell. Of course, the seagulls started mocking me - dumb birds. I did get them on camera trying to wade in and running when the wave would come hoping they would get drenched in a wave but they didn't. We took a trolley tour of the Victorian houses. I told Tyler it would be a great place for him to propose and find a Cape May diamond to set in a ring.

Phoenix

Last month I had to go to Phoenix for my 3rd year of residency to discuss the dissertation process. Hopefully this was my last year going as I plan to finish next year. I was the only student who had my three chapters completed and ready to submit to the Internal Review Board for approval. The first five days were about the Scholar, Practice, Leadership model, which really could have been done in three days. The next three days were about chapter 3 of the dissertation and submitting. It was so boring for me because I had nothing to work on. The final day I asked the professor if I could go back to the hotel. I did not think he would let me but he did and just told me to come back before four to check-out. The day before I sat all day and watched TV on my laptop. Really not that exciting but I finally had one day out at the pool with Michael, which was really nice.
The weather there is horrible - it never cools down. The only restaurant close by is Denny's, which is right in front of the hotel. But each night Michael and I would walk up the street. The first night we did not walk that far. The next morning Michael walked further up to ASU so we started walking up there each night and a little around campus. There were more eating places (yay!) and a pharmacy. Michael suggested that we get Tyler a shot glass from ASU so one evening we looked on a map for the bookstore. The map said to walk down the avenue of palms. We started walking in the direction we thought was correct but there were no signs. I almost asked someone if we were on the avenue of the palms and then we happened to look up. The path was lined with palm trees. We just laughed at ourselves and were glad we did not ask. Yes, we are geniuses. The book store was closed but Michael went back during the day and got him a couple of glasses from Tempe and ASU at the pharmacy.
We found a fantastic restaurant that we ate at three times because it was so good. It is called Oregano's and if you are ever in Tempe you must eat there. The service is the best I've ever had and the food amazing. The first night we got the Rosemary, Chicken, Potato thin crust. The next night we got the meatball sandwich, which is to die for. It is so large that splitting it we could not finish and the pizza cookie (heavenly!). The address in Tempe is 523 W. University Drive.

I was so glad Michael went with me as it would have been dreadful eating at Denny's alone each night.