Sattvic Salsa!!!!

Booya! (As my honey would say)

A little background info before I give you the recipe.

I am over half Native American (Blackfoot Lakota Sioux and Cherokee). I'm also Irish, French, German and Mexican. I was raised in a peculiar way, we are a hippie, gypsy matriarchy that identify most with our brown ancestors even though we look more like our white ones ;) That's a whole other story Ill go into it another time.

My gramma spoke Spanglish at us, half of which I understood, and a quarter of which I can speak. ;)

She owned 3 different Mexican resturants in her life, 2 of which I helped out at :-) I grew up with real bomb Mexican food!

I became a veggie health food nut around age 8. My mother still teases me about my birthday dinner at Red Lobster where I suddenly looked up at her and said, "we are eating someone's relative".

~*#*~Buzz Kill~*#*~

I've got the skill naturally....what can I say?

As time went on and I was able to assert myself and more inclined to eat less and less of the typical family fare the dinner conversations sounded something like this, "mija, just eat around the pork, you can still have the hominy" and "you know that vegetarain is Indian for bad hunter"... The extended relatives where the best..."what?... I thought vegetarians where skinny".

I ended up eating a lot of salsa, tortillas, fried potatoes and beans (yes I picked around the pork).

The family salsa is legendary and throughout my life I have basically ate salsa as the main component of all my summer meals... Ok most weren't even meals, it was just chips and salsa fest!!

Stay with me, we are almost to the recipe :-)

About three months ago I learned that chips and salsa were vata aggravating (I had self diagnosed as kapha and thought that I was eating light). Onions, peppers and garlic are rajasic (stimulating, aggravating aka not conducive to chillin out). In addition I learned that tomatoes, peppers, potatoes and eggplants are all from the nightshade family and are known to cause inflammation and therefore pain.

So sadly this has been my first tomatoe/salsa free summer :-(

I was lost in a cultural abyss, removed from La Familia and the ways of my Ancestors! Something must be done. After too many dry chips and wet eyes, with many sleepless nights racking my brain as to how to make something approaching salsa..... this is what I came up with!

With out further ado!

SATTVIC SALSA

1 bag frozen mangoes

1/2 bag frozen corn

1 and 1/2 to 2 limes

1 barely ripe avocado

3 sticks celery

1 bunch cilantro

1 large finger of fresh ginger

hing and sea salt to taste

Ok your making salsa folks so chop everything accordingly!

Important note the limes are chopped whole....include the peel! The limes and the ginger are the spice, add more or less as you desire. In fact adjust the whole recipe to your liking!

Just know, If you don't like cilantro we can't be friends.

Seriously...it would never work out between us.

This recipe was a hit with my immediate family and I loved it! I'm so happy to find a guilt free salsa! I'm excited to share with my family, who all love me just the way I am...The health food black sheep of the family... but definitely more colorful.

It is delicious and I hope that all the ingredients pass the Ayurveda sattvic requirements (Sattvic means serene, harmonious, balanced, promoting peace).

I am now ready for a family reunion ( we even eat Mexican food at Thanksgiving and Christmas)! With my knowledge of Ayurveda and nightshades, I can't have the fried potatoes or the family salsa but I'll still eat the beans and pick out the meat ;-)

Ok! FINE!! I'll prolly cheat when I see my gramma! I can't help it her cooking is the bomb!! But at least I can bring my version of salsa too!

Enjoy and Namaste