Green Apple Salsa

This is only my second “Green” post and I am having so much fun choosing foods and recipes to share with you, my readers.  The produce section has taken on a whole new appeal, so many green choices to work with!

Let’s talk about bees and how important they are to the production of food.  Natural, healthy, good for us food.  Bees pollinate about 70% of all the foods we eat – or should eat!  Can you imagine a world without watermelon, brazil nuts, macadamias, mangos, apricots, cherries, peaches, safflower, vanilla, kiwi or squash?  Blueberries, blackberries, almonds, nectarines, and plums also are pollinated by bees. The honey bee is essential to pollination of most of the foods I listed and if not essential plays a great part in pollinating of those foods.

I share all of this information with you because it’s not a widely known fact.  Bees get a bad rap for their ability to sting us.  Truth is if bees are left alone, unthreatened, they could care less about stinging us, for when they do, sadly they die.  Knowing the importance of these hard workers makes my job of keeping bees that much easier.  It’s one small contribution I can make in this big ole’ world to ensure that we have pure, wholesome foods to serve to our families.  One more fragment of my “green” thinking.

There are many articles about the decline of bees and many thoughts about the reason for their decline.  Pesticides and global warming are in the forefront of possibilities.  Also brought to light is the need for investing and re-investing in our world’s nature based services, such as forests, coral reefs and clean water supplies.  I’ll continue with my small part in helping our environment and I hope you’ll find a way to make your own contribution, if you haven’t already.

I’m truly astounded by the number of recipes I can make that are “green”.  I’ve made many salsas using fruits and veggies of all types but never have I seen one using apples.  Maybe my antenna are up for green foods but when I saw this Green Apple Salsa recipe I had to make it.  My man Dan and I had hankerd for tacos, so this entire recipe played right into my hands.

I couldn’t get dinner ready before the sun set but I did manage to chop up the salsa before our gray day turned even grayer.  Springs winds and rain have been upon us here in north Texas for the last couple of days but they didn’t prevent me from grilling shrimp and tortillas for these yummy tacos.  All of the ingredients in the salsa are green, apples, jalapeños and green onion with a tad of lime juice!  How fun is that?  The spicy shrimp are cooled by the tart, sweet coolness of the salsa.  It’s easy to throw this together on a busy evening as you can prepare the salsa, set it aside and then grill the shrimp and tortillas all at once.

I’ve recently noticed a few new visitors to The Orange Bee.  I want to take the time  to thank each person who stops by and checks out what’s going on here.  Readers make blogging possible and comments make bloggers smile.  Don’t hesitate to leave me a comment and turn this gray day into a sunny one.  Thanks!

Green Apple Salsa
adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients:

1 1/2 tsp. olive oil
2 tsp. fresh lime juice
1/3 cup sliced green onions
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. lime rind
1 minced, seeded jalapeño
1 Granny Smith apple, seeded, thinly sliced and cut into small sections

Combine all ingredients together; mix well, cover and chill until ready to use.
Serve over shrimp tacos and top with queso fresco.

I marinated the fresh wild-caught shrimp in lime juice, cumin, red pepper and paprika for about 30 minutes; then grilled them along with the corn tortillas.