avocado anchovy toast

Sometimes, a perfectly good meal can also be incredibly, ridiculously easy. Like if you smash up half an avocado and a couple of anchovies on some toasted whole wheat bread, drizzle it with olive oil. All you need is a little cracked black pepper and maybe, MAYBE a little extra salt, although the anchovy may have things covered. Avocados have a great creamy sweetness to them, and the saltiness of the anchovy compliments that really nicely. If you are worried about the anchovy being too fishy, try just a small amount. Just make sure to use a really ripe avocado that's nice and soft.

cast iron skillet salsa fresca "tomato cobbler" cornbread with ground beef, sour cream and guacamole

When I found this recipe for tomato cobbler, I was intrigued. It definitely was way different than everything else I had been making with my summer tomatoes, and that alone was enough to recommend it to me. Basically, its a simple skillet corn bread with a tomato salsa baked right in. Pretty neat sounding, right?

grilled mustard chicken with scallions/shredded kale salad with avocado and tomatoes

So it's a rare opportunity that I get to grill anything, being that I am afraid that I would set the roof of my building on fire were I ever to follow through on my dream of dragging a webber up there. Therefore, I was really excited when my brother suggested we commander mom and dad's grill one evening and throw a barbeque for our friends back in August, before he went back up to Cobleskill for school.

Of course, that failed to take into account that our parents live an hour from the city, and that none of my friends were going to come out after a long week of work for a Friday night dinner party. So instead Nathan and Matt and I cooked everything for Mom and Dad instead. I think they were pretty happy to get to eat all the good stuff we made, and it was a really nice family meal, on a beautiful cool summer night, out in the backyard, crickets chirping. Our friends definitely missed out!

andalusian gazpacho/cold tomato soup with corn guacamole

Gazpacho is a little tricky. You might think that you could just throw some peppers and onions and garlic and bread and a whole bunch of tomatoes in the blender, let it chill in the fridge for a couple of hours and call it dinner. But if you're not careful, that's when you get bland watery gazpacho, or a pulpy granular mash with very little liquid, or gazpacho so potently pungent from raw garlic and onions that you'll be scrubbing the taste off your tongue for days. With something so simple as a raw soup, it's extremely important that you strike a nice balance with your ingredients, because it's the simplest things that are easiest to mess up.

citrus sriracha mayonaise over scallops and avocado salad

I am pretty sure that I have never said this before on this blog: drop what you are doing and make this right now. For reals. Your day off plans for Labor Day are now to make scallops with this awesome sauce. I promise that you'll thank me.

This sauce recipe comes from The Amateur Gourmet, but it's definitely something you can imagine emerging from a professional kitchen, and it's simultaneously really easy to prepare. This was hands down the most elegant thing I've ever made on a weeknight, and Nathan and I couldn't stop exclaiming how good it was.

Of course, it all because clear when you read further and learn that Mr. Amateur Gourmet actually jacked this recipe from none other than famous chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten after NYT restaurant critic Sam Sifton selected it as one of his favorite restaurant dishes of 2010. That certainly goes a long way towards explaining this recipe's brilliance-- and if that's not good enough for you, I don't know what else to say.




So I guess you want to know how to make the dish already, right? Well you better be down to make your own mayo*. Don't worry, your arm might get a little tired, but it's totally doable. I have faith in you. Whisk together a splash of sriracha, pinch of salt and egg yolk, adding your oil drop by drop until you get a nice thick mayo. Then you stir in orange and lime juice to thin it out and add some of that citrusy zing and acidity that pairs so nicely with seafood.

The original sauce was served over big, seared, sea scallops, but as much as I love them, they are a bit rich for my blood. I went for cheaper bay scallops, which had sadly been frozen. Obviously, I didn't achieve that nice golden brown carmelization that you so often see on scallops (I cooked them in butter over medium high heat), but I think that's just fine for these little guys. The sauce went SO SO well with these scallops. A little sweet, a little spicy, and a whole lot of creamy deliciousness. So perfect!

To go with our scallops, we had a bright green salad, tossed with our spicy citrus mayo and topped with slices of orange and avocado. It was an excellent accompaniment. You might find that you don't need a rich mayo based dressing on avocado, but the citrus cuts the richness, and the sriracha adds some bite. It really hit the spot.

So, what are you waiting for? Go make this now!

PS. In a pinch you could probably just add sriracha and citrus to regular Hellmans mayo. Don't tell Jean-George I said so.

scallops with avocado, tomato, scallions and cilantro

Every time a new month rolls around, I remind myself to write a blog post. It stems from the hope that I'll be able to blog every day for a month, like I did twice last year, but I don't really have it in me these days.

Anyway, I have a great summery dish for you today: scallops, avocado, scallions, lime, tomatoes and cilantro, all served up in a giant cocktail glass. This is actually something my mother usually brings to Christmas Eve dinner as one of the compulsory fish courses, and the picture below is from last year's celebration. My brother's godmother, Julie, has this fabulous giant cocktail glass that she serves this in every year, but you could just as easily use individual margarita glasses or make due with less flashy bowls. Even though it's part of our Christmas tradition, I want to share this with you all now as the ingredients certainly lend themselves to warm weather. I definitely would love to make this with the summer tomato crop!



A cold seafood salad of sorts, this is almost akin to ceviche, although the scallops are briefly cooked before being doused in citrus. What makes it a likely choice for hot weather its ease of preparation. As long as you don't mind a fair bit of chopping, this dish is a breeze– with less than two minutes of actual cooking time, you won't even have to break a sweat. Once the scallops have been simmered, you just toss it all together for a bright, colorful and delicious dish.


Scallop-Avocado Appetizer
(from USA Weekend, Eat Smart, by Jean Carpenter, 2006)

1 pound dry-pack small bay scallops (preferably those that have not been frozen)
1 cup chopped tomato
1 cup sliced green onions
1 avocado, cubed
1 cup chopped cilantro
6 tbsp fresh lime juice (two lies)
1 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp hot pepper flakes, or to taste
¼ tsp salt, or two taste

In a small pan, bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Add scallops, reduce heat and simmer 1½ minutes– do not overcook. Drain and refrigerate for 2 hours. Combine all ingredients. Serve in cocktail glasses.

epic BLT

What do you think this might be for?



Oh that's right, it's a big, greasy BLT, loaded with so many toppings that you have to eat it with a knife and fork.



I wanted to make a BLT with my food co-op tomatoes, and I also wanted to use some avocado. California must have had quite a bumper crop this summer, because even here in New York they were unusually cheap and delicious this year.

I don't know why I even bothered to google making a BLT, but I am glad that I did, because Thomas Keller's recipe gave me the brilliant idea of adding melted cheese and a fried egg. Leave it to a world class chef to come up with a bacon egg and cheese/BLT/grilled cheese combo. An unholy alliance of all things fatty and delicious, this was one epic sandwich.



I may not be a world class chef, but I have to say that I think I did Keller one better with the addition of avocado. And in a further stroke of genius, I also tossed on some caramelized onions. If I had had time, I would have even made the mayonnaise from scratch, but Hellman's did just fine.



I think it's safe to say that there's not much you could do to make this sandwich more delicious, and making this during the day allowed me to get actual good photos with natural light! Imagine that!



Yeah, that's the money shot.

avocado chocolate pudding

So in the event that you break your jaw, you'll probably end up googling your condition. Before too long you'll find the number one food blog on the subject, Jaws Wired Shut. I have to admit, I didn't spend all that much time poking around there, mainly because finding a bunch of specialized recipes would mean accepting that this injury would be defining my diet for a significant amount of time. Even after the two weeks of wires turned into four, I was still in a bit of denial. Frankly, I wanted to avoid dwelling on my situation, and a lot of the suggestions were things I figured out on my own, like adding peanut butter and bananas to my milkshakes.

However, I did find a couple of ideas during my limited browsing. For one, I blended one of the cupcakes Laura and I bought for our friend Matt's birthday from Magnolia bakery into a delicious milk shake. The second meal I prepared is currently the most recently posted entry, a avocado chocolate pudding, playfully called "chocomole." It sounds pretty bizarre, I admit, but the picture looked just like a creamy, rich chocolate pudding should.


avocado chocolate pudding

See?

All you need is a food processor and a few simple ingredients, and you can transform an avocado into a very unlikely dessert. I substituted cocoa powder for the 3½ tablespoons raw cacao powder, but other than that I followed the recipe as written. One avocado, ½ teaspoon vanilla extract, ¼-½ cup water, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, ⅓ cup maple syrup, and ¼ teaspoon salt simply blended together in the food processor = pudding! It sounds crazy, but it really does work.

It was good, but it had a rather oily texture that became rather unpleasant after awhile. I poured some half and half on top, which helped with the sliminess, but it was still a bit too cinnamonny. I think that this is a rather clever way to make a more healthy and nutritious chocolate pudding, but it was a little strange and probably wouldn't appeal to people who aren't on soft or liquid diets.


half and half makes everything better

This wasn't a failure by any means, but there was definitely something slightly off about it. Just not quite the pudding you're used to. Which I suppose shouldn't be surprising, since it's made from avocados.

liquid food....

...sucks. I am getting the wires replaced with rubber bands tomorrow, I think. I hope. I haven't been able to lick my lips or unclench my teeth in nearly two weeks. It's been absolutely awful. I've been mostly drinking ensure mixed with ice cream, yogurt, sour cream, berries and juices. I am getting used to the kind of gross taste, actually.

I've mixed up a couple of savory things, but there's just something utterly unappealing about straining pureed spinach or avocado through your teeth, even if you've mixed it with black beans, sour cream, red onion, cilantro, lime, tomato, chicken broth, olive oil, cumin and garlic powder. It tastes good, but the act of drinking quickly kills any enjoyment of the meal.

Nathan actually liked my avocado drink and used it as a dipping sauce for a grilled cheese sandwich with black beans and avocado.



Boy would I kill to bite into something as simple as a grilled cheese sandwich.

I've also been drinking a lot of corn soup. I had frozen the disappointing watered down soup I made a few weeks ago, so when I got more corn I simply defrosted it and added more corn kernels. It's much richer and sweeter with the extra corn, but I'm sick of it too, to be honest.

Here's a picture:



I can't even eat the cilantro garnish. What an utter bummer.