Mango-Avocado Brown Rice: My New Favorite Side Dish

I buy produce the way some women buy shoes. Upon entering the grocery store, I turn into a good little consumer and immediately become bewitched by the brightest, most appetizing produce at the front of the store. I ignore the fact that it has been put at the front of the store not for fun, but to trick me into purchasing it. I pretend to consider whether or not the purchase is a wise one, and then I make it, with no regard to what I'll serve it with or how I'll be able to extract a week's worth of meals from it.

Especially since starting the elimination diet, I've been splurging more on produce. Because I can't buy cheese or wine, which make up the other fifty percent of my impulse-buys at the grocery store, my attention has been drawn increasingly to fruits and vegetables.

This is how I ended up with a very ripe mango and a very ripe avocado on Saturday afternoon. I was feeling too lazy to make two separate dishes, so I decided to try cutting up both the mango and the avocado and tossing them with some leftover brown rice.

It was delicious. Here's a mediocre photo of what it looks like (next to a very delicious serving of cilantro lime chicken).


I'm not going to write up a recipe because it's really simple: cut a mango and an avocado into one-inch pieces. Toss them with brown rice, a squeeze of lemon, and a teaspoon of olive oil, and add salt to taste.

I've made this at least four times since Saturday afternoon, and it's only Tuesday. Tonight I made it with a champagne mango, which was fantastic. Both the mango and the avocado were the best quality I've been able to find in a while, and their creamy textures mixed perfectly with the brown rice.

I'm on day fifteen of the diet, and still going strong. My cravings are now more interesting than challenging, and I feel about a zillion times better without coffee in my life. Probably the best part about the diet has been being forced to be creative with my meals--I've come up with some definite keepers for even after the diet is over.