King prawn and avocado starter with a slight twist

This starter has a bit of a story behind it. It was really born as a result of several coincidences. Me and the Culinary Consultant were going to roast a whole chicken as our after workout meal the other day. However, we were going to take a quick nap after the gym, but ended up napping for almost two hours. And in his typical style, the Culinary Consultant had picked the biggest chicken he could find, and we realised cooking time for the chicken would be three hours. Really hungry after the gym (and extended nap) we realised we need a starter to keep us alive until the giant chicken was cooked. Luckily, the Culinary Consultant had some king prawns in the freezer, and was planning to serve them with a mayo based sauce. He asked if I wanted something else from the grocery store as he had to get some mayo and I thought some avocados would be nice with the prawns. He came back not only with mayo and avocados, but also a mango. I rarely use fruit when I'm cooking, but whenever I do, I absolutely adore the result. I have done a really good mango and avocado salsa, but this time I thought how about doing a fruity salsa type of thingy but using mayo instead. We had both been working out for two hours, so I thought the most important thing in this case was not how healthy the food would be, just how good it would taste. 

This is a really quick and easy starter. If you like the traditional prawn and avocado combination, I'm pretty sure you will like this too. You can also modify the proportion of onion to mango to tomato to get a salsa to your specific liking.

Super non-healthy mayo salsa (malsa? sal-yo?) with garlic prawns (serves 2):
For the salsa:
1/4 of a big red onion (or about 1/2 of a small one, or any amount to taste)
1/3 of a ripe mango
1 large ripe tomato on the vine
1/4-1/2 clove of garlic
2-3 tbsp mayo (I used full fat for maximum flavour, but you can obviously use your favourite)
1/2 tsp ground black pepper

For the prawns:
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly
250 g king prawns

You will also need 1 ripe avocado for serving

The howto:
Finely chop the garlic, onion, mango and tomato. Mix in a bowl with the mayo and black pepper. In a skillet, heat up the oil with the garlic. Add the prawns and cook until cooked through (or if you are using cooked prawns, only give them a few seconds on both sides to heat them up). Divide the avocado onto two plates, add prawns and salsa. 

The verdict:
For something that was whipped together from random ingredients, this turned out amazingly good. I wanted to eat the sauce straight out of the bowl with a spoon. Obviously, I was ravenously hungry as well, so maybe I have to make this another time to see if it was just the hunger or not. But I think it wasn't just the hunger, it was truly good. Trust me, you have to try this! I love the combination of mango and red onion, and the mango goes incredibly well with the garlic-y prawns. I think you could stretch this to serve as a starter to three or four people as well, if they haven't just come back from the gym, and if it will be immediately followed by a main.

Card of the day:
This time my card is a get well card for my sister. You might remember that it's not very long since my last get well card for her. I told her that I appreciate her hard work to make sure I have reasons to make cards, but I would love to do something else than a get well card. The owl is from a stamp set called Fox and Friends from Stampin Up. I have wanted this stamp set ever since I saw these awesome cards, and since, the stamp set has popped up here and there. Since then I have found entire Pinterest boards dedicated to the stampset (just type fox and friends in the search box, and click boards if you want to see some amazing cards). Anyhows, my point was that I really wanted the stamp set, but you can't really buy it anywhere anymore. I found someone selling it on Ebay, but ended up paying quite a lot of money for it. Not that it's not worth every penny, but seems like some of the stamp sets really increase in value after they are retired. So now I just have to make as much use of it as I can to make the purchase worth it. And it is just so darn cute!! 

I stamped the owl onto Hobbycraft ivory card (160 gsm) using Tim Holtz distress inks (Broken China, Peeled Paint, Worn Lipstick, Dusty Concord and Fired Brick). I used the Hobbycraft Single Clear Tree stamp in the bottom left hand corner, stamped with Tim Holtz distress ink Walnut Stain. I used the same ink to stamp the sentiment, for which I used the Hobbycraft Clear Stamps Typewriter alphabet in walnut stain, and stamped a bit of the tree at the edge of the sentiment. I inked the edges of both the sentiment and the background with Walnut Stain and Vintage photo distress inks. I matted both the sentiment and background onto a green paper from the Dovecraft Back to Basics III set and adhered it all onto kraft cardstock from Craft UK Limited.