An amazing avocado

I went to whole foods yesterday prior to the first ever "COOKING CLUB" that me and my gal friends have been meaning to start for months. Crab dip with naan bread and roasted peaches with vanilla ice cream was on the menu. We wanted to start simple. I was in the mood for a caprese style salad and was intent on picking up some bocconcini. I also needed to grab a baguette in case my naan bread (rising tentatively in a bag under my arm) did not work out. 

As I entered the store I saw the most mind boggeling pile of avocados I had ever seen. You can see one depicted above, I'm not sure the size of the avocado comes across but it was huge! I looked around the store to see if anyone else was reacting to these monsters. I picked one up and to my surprise, despite the bright green colour, the avocado was soft; it had the perfect give. I bought two.

I made a delicious midnight snack using a quarter of the avocado chopped, with chopped baby tomatoes, chopped mozerella, and a generous amount of olive oil, basamic vinegar and sea salt. The mock brushetta, once stirred became creamy from the soft avocado. It was served up on the baguette that was not required at cooking club.

The creaminess of the avocado inspired the simple recipe below.


Orzo, new potato and mixed veggie salad with creamy avocado

Ingredients

• 3 - 4 cups cooked orzo, rinsed under cold water and drained well 
• 3 small (2") new potatoes boiled and cooled, chopped
• 1/4 - 1/3 cup of each chopped grape tomatoes, yellow pepper, red pepper, spinach, grilled yellow zucchini
• 5 chopped sun-dried tomatoes

Directions

1. Chop all of the veggies and make the avocado dressing (below) while the orzo is cooking. 
2. Toss everything together and eat :) 

Avocado Dressing

Ingredients

• 3/4 of my huge avocado (soft but not mushy)
• 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1 crushed garlic clove
• 1-2 tsp honey (agave or maple syrup for vegans)
• salt and pepper

Directions

1. Mash, mash, mash.

Notes

You can use anything you want in the salad but I would make sure to have sun-dried tomatoes or olives in there for the saltiness. Also the peppers add a crunch that I also find essential. Spinach and tomatoes, I cannot live without. The potatoes make the dish feel more substantial and the zucchini I just had left over. I find grilled vegetables in salads adds something extra special.

Also, I really wished I had lemons or limes on hand to use instead of the white wine vinegar although it turned out better than I expected. Also, I used too much garlic (3 cloves) and was regretting that. So don't over do the garlic, unless you roast it, that would be yummy I'm sure.

a cappuccino and a letter from Jack

A sad morning today. I awoke with a text message from my sister, Erica: "Noooo jack layton died :( :( nooo". It was one of those days that needed to be initiated with something more than a plain old espresso.

I read Jack Layton's final letter to Canadians in sadness and silence, with my cappuccino.



"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world."

-Jack Layton

Kale me now.

I eat too many chips. I could blame it on being a student but I'm not sure that flies. I try to pick the "healthy" ones. Actually I love the root vegetable kind seasoned with tomato. Unfortunately that is also the most expensive bag of chips I can find at the store, and there is not much in the bag.

I would like to make an effort to stop eating so many empty calories in the form of chips and replace my snacks with something containing a couple vitamins, maybe some anti-oxidants.

I present to you today, replacement option 1: Kale chips. These are all the rage right now and, thanks to Mike's parents' bringing over a gigantic bushel of kale, I finally had the chance to try making them.

It took several tries to get the hang of it, but the key to a perfect kale chip is: don't take your eyes off of them.

Kale Chips

1. Preheat oven to 350F. I cook on a pizza stone in the middle of the oven.
2. Wash the kale and tear the leaves into chip size pieces, the size of your palm (if you are a girl with small hands) or smaller. The smaller ones are always the most satisfying, the ones you can just crush in one mouthful. Avoid incorporating any stems into your batch, these dont cook as fast as the leaves and will be chewy rather than crisp.
3. Dry the leaves (shake or let sit on a towel for a couple minutes) and put into a large bowl. Drizzle on your topping (I mention a couple below) and toss to coat with your hands. You dont need a lot but try to coat evenly.
4. Spread the kale out evenly on a baking sheet. I dont overlay the leaves, I will do several batches instead. Before you put them in you can sprinkle with a teeny tiny bit of salt. If you are making an asian flair chip you can also sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.
5. Put the tray in the oven. You can let them go about 5 minutes unattended but after that I start to check on them. I take the tray out and touch one of the leaves. If it is done it will be brittle and dry, like a fallen autumn dry leaf. If it is still floppy, leave it in the oven. If the leaves are turning brown, they are over done and will taste bitter and burnt. In my oven, 8 minutes is about perfect. But some leaves take longer than others so I remove them as they are ready. You can eat them as soon as they come out.

*Note: my mom found better success with making these using a lower temperature for longer (150F for a couple of hours). So maybe depending on your oven or time constraints you may want to play around with these two variables.

Kale Chip Seasonings

Asian flair

• 3 tbsp canola oil
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• a dash or 2 of togarashi shichimi (chili, salty udon spice) - if you dont have this I would use chili powder and seasoning salt
• Toasted sesame seeds

Citrus salt

• 3 tbsp canola oil
• 1 tbsp fresh lime juice
• 1 minced/crushed garlic clove
• Seasoning or sea salt

Note on seasoning

Mix your own proportions but be careful with the salt. The leaves shrink when you cook so the flavour really concentrates. I dont put much salt in the mix but do a very sparse sprinkling over leaves when they are spread out on the baking sheet just before going in. If you make them too salty, learn from it and try again.