Sensationally delicious pumpkin seed dressing

I'm a huge fan of Rick Bayless's Mexican Everyday, and cook with it often. One of my favorites is his avocado-mango salad with fresh cheese and toasted pumpkin seeds.

Seriously, read that sentence again: was there ever such a series of delightful words? Each wonderful in its way, and together ...



For this fantastic dressing, you toast half a cup of pumpkin seeds. Put about a third of them (you can be flexible) into a blender (my tiny little mini blender works just great) with 1/3 cup fresh lime juice. Then softly cook a couple cloves garlic and, optionally, a green chili in 1/3 oil, and add the works, oil and all to the blender along with a little honey and salt. Blend, blend, blend. Then drizzle on top of Bibb lettuce and sliced avocado and mango, and scatter a slice per person of crispy bacon, cheese, and toasted pumpkin seeds over.

Tonight I made the dressing with seeds I'd toasted for snacks earlier, and instead of making the salad above, I mixed it with a diced mango, avocado, red onion, and red bell pepper, scattered a handful of cilantro over it along with the seeds, and ate it on a tostada. Of course, it wasn't till we'd finished that I thought about taking a photo, which was a shame: The colors make this the prettiest tostada you can imagine.

Trust me.