avocado

Hot Brekky in a Hurry

Working on a Sunday is never really fun, I mean, who wants to rush around on Sunday? I wasn’t starting work until 9:30am but I usually like to leave myself about an hour to get there. I’d been up for awhile drinking tea, messing around, when I realised it was close to 8am and I had to start getting my lunch ready. With about half an hour up my sleeve, I knew I’d easily have time to make a black quinoa salad, thanks to my beloved Thermomix.

It only takes 18 minutes…plenty of time! While I was chopping up the veggies I wanted to add to the salad, I was inspired to make myself a hot breakfast – after all, I had heaps of time, right? I mean, with Thermie taking care of lunch I had all this time to fry up some stuff….right?

Oh dear. Talk about multi-tasking! Even with my lunch veggies ready to add to the quinoa in the last 4-6 minutes, I was really pushing it. But I did it, and it was super wholesome and very tasty even though I inhaled it!

Somehow I managed – within 45 minutes – to prepare a quinoa salad, an apple & coconut chia dessert cup, do ¾ of the washing up, cook and eat the following super nutritious (and filling) hot brekky before leaving for work:

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Smashed fried eggs atop mushroom & capsicum Hash with (gluten free) avocado toast

Pop about 1 tablespoon of coconut oil in a frying pan over a medium heat, then chop up 8-10 mushrooms and ¼ capsicum. Throw them straight in the pan then de-stem and roughly chop up 3 kale leaves. Stir the mushroom & capsicum Hash then grab 2 eggs, ½ avocado and prep your toast by sitting it in the toaster so it’s read to go (I use gluten free bread).

Add the kale to the Hash and stir until it has wilted (a couple of minutes, tops). Start the toaster then serve up the Hash, returning the pan to the stovetop, adding a little more coconut oil and breaking the eggs into the pan. Spread the avocado over your toast (on the plate with the Hash) then with the spatula, roughly scrape the frying eggs from the pan base, tearing and smashing them up as you tip them on top of the Hash. Season and get stuck into this messy but highly nutritious and satisfying breakfast.

Cacao Avocado Mousse

The final touch for the best Mother’s Day pancakes is another too quick-and-simple but nutrient dense treat that can be enjoyed entirely on its own. Or with fruit (especially blueberries)! I love my fruit, can you tell?

The avocado makes this dish. Its naturally creamy texture and bland taste make it one of the most versatile super foods out there and I think people are only just beginning to discover its true potential. It’s the (very healthy) fat content that makes it work as a mousse…a mousse full of vitamin E; not what you’d expect to find in a conventional nor commercial version.food fervour

So, grab 1 small avocado, ¼ cup (approx 20gm) cacao powder, 1 dessertspoon maple syrup and IF you want to thin it down so it’s like a runnier ‘sauce’ over the pancakes, you’ll also need at least ¼ cup (45gm) milk (any kind you prefer) milk. Or even coconut water coz it’s naturally sweet, and well as (phyto)nutrient dense.

Simply throw it all in your chosen blending appliance, ‘wazz’ it ups few times, scraping down the sides in between. Actually, because avocado is so easily broken down, you could pretty much blend by hand. If you wanted. Meh, save your energy!

Soooo easy. And soooo good.

 

Quick Warm Salad with Avocado & Sautéed Bacon

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I wanted avocado but I wanted something warm. And of course I wanted a variety of veggies. But what protein?

I’m over throwing feta into everything. And then I remembered I had bacon in the freezer. Now I rarely touch cured meats because of the nitrates in them, but I always have some chopped up and stored in the freezer for the (very) rare occasion I feel like fried rice. Or a soup…or something. Like Matriciana.

Not that I’m into pasta either (especially since I went gluten free, and beyond that, choosing to avoid processed foods) but I know of that dish and know that bacon and chilli go well together. Oh, look at that! There’s some chillis in the freezer too, right under the bacon! With the frozen ginger and turmeric. “Right!” I think, “this will show you, Head Cold.”

Chilli likes broccoli too. And so do I. So it was all too simple.

food fervourI threw a de-seeded red chilli, a clove of garlic, a piece of turmeric and a piece of garlic in the Thermomix and chopped them up, then added the bacon and about 20gms olive oil and sautéed all that for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, I filled up & turned on the kettle, chopped up some broccoli and snow peas, then blanched them in a saucepan with the kettle’s boiling contents. I dissected and scooped out my avocado halves, chopped up some cherry tomatoes & a shallot, then drained the broccoli & snow peas and threw them on top of the rocket bed. I placed the avocado halves in the centre and scattered the cherry tomatoes around. The sautéed bacon & spices smothered the avocado and I sprinkled the shallots over the top. A decent hand-squeeze of half a bush lemon finished it off.

It took me less than 15 minutes to make, it tasted great and guess what? My nose has stopped running 🙂

Quick Quinoa & Haloumi Salad

I’ve already told you I’m lazy, right? Well this dish (it changes every time) is one of the easiest I know to make when I want something substantial – and slightly warm. Lunch in a hurry today…

I’m loving quinoa (most of you know by now its pronounced ‘keen-wah’ not ‘kwin-o-ah’) as much as the next healthy foodie and I’ve worked out it’s because it kills two birds with one stone: it has ‘complex-carb-functionality’ but an incredibly higher protein content than your average rice or couscous serving. So it makes for a great base to what would normally be a primarily veggie-based meal (what salad isn’t? Oh yeah….pasta salad. Urgh.)Food Fervour

You can throw in whatever you like, considering there are a couple of processes involved (oooh, very technical and not-so-lazy of me!) but make sure you pack in the vege. I’m loving the stronger flavour of red quinoa at the moment but the usual kind will do.

For a single serve of this messy little concoction (pictured) you will need:

1/4 cup rinsed -or previously soaked- red quinoa, 1/2-3/4 cup water, coconut oil, 1-2 tbspn cornflour, approx 100gms haloumi cut into chunks, 1/2 small red capsicum roughly chopped, 2 kale leaves de-stemmed & finely chopped, a decent handful of rocket or spinach roughly chopped, 1-2 tbspn pine nuts (toasted if you can be bothered), 1/2 avocado sliced diagonally, juice of 1/2 lime, 2-3 tablespoons olive oil, Himalayan salt (if required)

Place the quinoa & water in a saucepan, bring to the boil then reduce to simmer partially covered for 12-15 minutes. (I actually use my Thermomix for this because it cooks quinoa than I ever have been able to). Meanwhile, pop the oil in frying pan over a medium heat and quickly roll your haloumi chunks in the cornflour. Add them to the pan along with the capsicum and cook for about 4-5 minutes, turning the browning cheese and stirring the capsicum. Add the kale, combining with the capsicum and cook for a further 2-3 minutes or until the kale has wilted.

Make a bed of the rocket/spinach in your serving dish, dump the quinoa on top, then the capsicum & kale over that (we’re not about ‘Looks’ here!). Arrange your avocado slices & haloumi chunks on top then sprinkle over the pine nuts. Add lime juice & olive oil separately by hand, or mix them if you want to add to the washing up.

Salt if you need it, and chow down.