It’s officially Day One of our weight-loss-and-smaller-portions regime.  I started my recipe search over at Words to Eat By – a great food blog written by Debbie Koenig.  Debbie is a great cook, a wonderful writer, and the wife of Victor’s sister-in-law’s sister’s son, Stephen.  We’re almost like cousins – or something.  Okay – that’s pretty much a stretch, but Debbie is the person responsible for me writing this blog.   It was Thanksgiving 2005 that they were here for the festivities.  Debbie was writing Words To Eat By and pretty much convinced me that I should write one, too.  That weekend I installed a blogging program on my recipe website.

The rest, as they say, is history.

So… fast-forward to this morning…  I had been on WtEB yesterday looking for ideas and had found a great-sounding recipe for Grilled Chipotle-Lime-Tequila Chicken.  While that in and of itself sounded great, the Corn and Peach Salsa she served along with it was the deciding factor.  The only problem was, I had already pulled a big ol’ bone-in turkey breast out of the freezer. (It had been there since Easter – Victor’s mom got it as a freebie from one of the local grocery stores.)  But I wanted that salsa… Tonight’s dinner was born!

I decided that I was going to BBQ the turkey breast.  Had I roasted it in the oven, I would have been compelled to make gravy, mashed potatoes, probably sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, a small batch of dressing…  You do see where this is going…  Turkey in the oven pretty much requires all of the traditional accompaniments.  A turkey on the grill can become anything at all.

So…  I dusted the breast with chipotle powder, cumin, garlic, salt and pepper.  I put it on the grill with briquettes around the side and slow-cooked it with lid for about 2 1/2 hours.  Perfect.

I had been to Gentile’s earlier in the morning for my weekly produce binge, so while the breast was cooking, I made the corn salsa.

Corn-Peach Salsa – from Words to Eat By

Serves 6

Kernels from 2 ears extremely fresh corn (if it’s not perfectly fresh, you’ll have to cook the corn first, then cool it)
1 ripe peach, peeled and diced fine
½ small red onion, diced fine
10 pappadew peppers, diced fine [I used pappadews because the chicken it’s going with is quite spicy—if you want a spicy salsa, too, substitute one small jalapeno, minced]
Juice of ½ lime
8 mint leaves, chopped
Fleur de sel

Combine all ingredients except fleur de sel in a bowl and stir. Refrigerate for ½ hour or more to let the flavors meld. Just before serving, sprinkle with fleur de sel.

This salsa should probably have some cilantro in it, so if you’re crazy enough to like that dirty-dish-water-tasting weed, go right ahead and swap it for the mint.

I made it pretty much just as stated – with fresh uncooked white corn and the mint.  While I am a huge fan of that dirty-dish-water-tasting weed, cilantro, the idea of mint in a spicy salsa intrigued me.  I’m glad it did. I swapped out the pappadew peppers for Goya Aji Picante Hot Pickled Peppers because I just happened to have them in the cabinet.

The salsa rocked.  I’m a huge fan of fruit salsas to begin with, but the fresh corn and perfectly ripe peaches really went well together.

Since I hadn’t marinated the turkey, but still wanting that kinda boozy, citrusy, smoky flavor, I decided I’d make a bit of  a sauce out of the marinade.  Alas, I had no tequila and no limes in the house!  I had every other liquor in the world as well as lemons and oranges – but no tequila and lime.  A bit difficult to make a chipotle tequila lime sauce without two key ingredients, right?  Right.  So I didn’t.  I made a chipotle orange sauce, instead.

Chipotle Orange Sauce

• 1 cup chicken broth
• juice of 1 large orange
• 1 canned chipotle pepper in adobo, finely minced
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tsp cornstarch mixed with about 2 tbsp water

Mix first 4 ingredients in a small saucepan.  Bring to boil and reduce to about 1/2 cup.  Thicken with cornstarch to desired consistency.

Brown rice cooked with cumin, chili powder, and cherry tomatoes,  and zucchini waffle-cut on the mandoline and then put under the broiler.

The portions were smaller than in days (weeks/months/years) past.  We ate without going back for seconds, and we have leftovers for some fun lunches!  We were both on the treadmill this morning and will be going back on tonight.

All-in-all, a successful first day!