Unripe Avocado Success!

I was working from home today, so planned a yummy lunch of an ALT (Avocado, Lettuce, and Tomato sandwich. Alas, after I had sliced the tomatoes, I started in on the avocado and found that it was HARD! It would never mash into a yummy spread. It did seem edible, though, although it tasted more vegetabl-y (like eating leaves and grass) than I was prepared for.

I'm trying to be more flexible with my cooking, so I just started improvising, and the result was awesome. First, I sautéed the tomatoes while adding salt, garlic powder, pepper and dried thyme. If I had more energy, I probably would have put in fresh garlic and thyme, but such is life. Meanwhile, I cut the avocado into rough 1/2- to 1-inch chunks. I added them to the skillet briefly to let them soften a little, and get a little brown. Heck, if I'm eating unripe avocado, I might as well cook it and break all the rules, right? In the end, I used it on my nutty wheat bread and added a little sprinkle of cheese and zapped it enough to melt the cheese (would have been better if I had broken out the broiler...).

And the Verdict - It was great! It tasted vaguely Italian, like a quick vegetable Parmesan or something. The nutty bread really worked out well. Next time, I might use a whole tomato, but hopefully it won't happen again! - I'll post pictures soon :)

2 New Recipes

We tried 2 new recipes this week- Pad Thai from Mark Bittman, and Penne with Ricotta and Pine Nuts from Martha Stewart.

I've tried Mark's Pad Thai before, and am not convinced that this recipe from "The Minimalist" is much different. On the other hand, I was able to get my hands on tamarind from my local oriental market (their wording, not mine) so I thought I'd give it a shot. It has a TON of nappa cabbage in it, and not very much noodles (despite the picture on the article), 4 ounces of noodles, a small cabbage... but it turned out delish. I also skipped the shrimp as we don't love shrimp here too much and tofu generally works out pretty well. In the future, I might batter the tofu before to give it some more crunch, maybe with some sirachi or something to give it some spice....Like most of his recipes, this makes 2 big dinners or 4 teeny dinners. Up to you! I think I might tweak this recipe based on whatever was on hand, and that would probably be ok by MB.

I had second thoughts about the flavor level in the Penne before I even started. So everyone got a spicy italian sausage as well. Of course, it got a little out of control, trying to cook the noodles, sausage and the pine nuts, so I burned the pine nuts. I tossed them rather than have them foul up the whole dish, but we were definately left wanting more. :( Jonathan gave this a 2 on our 5 star system, and he said that without the sausage, it would have been lower. Oh well.