Posts Tagged avocado
Avocado, Cambozola, & Prosciutto Sandwich
Posted by Gorging George in Sandwiches on March 15, 2012
I meant to share this sandwich with you yesterday. Because I was talking about avocados and my inspirations from Pinterest that helped create yesterday’s dish.
There’s really no recipe needed to make this sanwich, but the combination of flavours are amazing, so I wanted you to make it for yourself. For me, caraway seeds (in rye bread) and blue cheese are a match made in heaven – I don’t know what it is, but I love smearing any blue-based cheese onto a rye cracker or toasted rye bread. When I was at the grocery store this weekend I happened to see a wedge of cambozola waving at me, begging to end up in my cart, and eventually my belly. And since I had just grabbed a fresh loaf of dark Winnipeg rye, I snatched it up quickly.
So yesterday when I had avocados on my mind, I added thick slices of the buttery green fruit to my toasted rye and cambozola sandwich; and then proceeded to add some prosciutto for some saltiness. What is cambozola? – in case you’re unaware: It is a combination of a creamy cheese: camembert, and a pungent cheese: Gorgonzola. And it is one of my favourite cheeses on this Earth – I don’t have to eat so much cheese this way because I get 2 cheeses in 1!
Avocado, Cambozola & Prosciutto Sandwich on Rye
2 thick slices dark rye
1 garlic clove, cut in half
3 slices cambozola cheese
nearly 1/2 an avocado, cut into thick slices
2 slices prosciutto
Toast the rye bread. When it comes out of the toaster and is still warm, rub each slice with one half of the garlic. Layer the cambozola, avocado, and prosciutto onto one of the slices of rye and top with the other. Enjoy.
Makes 1 sandwich.
Winter Pinterest Challenge – Avocado
Posted by Gorging George in Appetizers on March 14, 2012
Hello friends! Are you here to check out what avocado treat I was inspired to make during the Pinterest Challenge? Or did you just stumble here haphazardly? If so, you can check in on the last post for a quick description of the Pinterest Challenge, because there’s not much sense in overly recapping today. You can also check out the description over at the blogs of the hosts of this challenge: Sherry at Young House Love or Katie at Bower Power.
I decided to take inspiration from the first pin I pictured: the Avocado, Cream Cheese & Salsa Stuffed Puff Pastries from Averie Cooks. What I’m sharing with you today barely resembles this recipe. I basically just took the words “Avocado” “Salsa” & “Stuffed” and went from there. But thank you Averie for sharing this recipe, I can’t wait to make these puff pastries soon!
I wanted to stuff something … and since I had just posted about Phyllo dough, my mind didn’t have to wander far to figure out what I would be using as vessel for the avocado. I also wanted some non-dairy protein, and decided on shrimp. A quick day-dream while watching wind surfers on the lake and I decided to make little phyllo triangles stuffed with chipotle shrimp and an avocado & mango salsa. This is basically a Greek/Southwest mash-up of our favourite chipotle shrimp tacos that we like to make frequently (which I apparently haven’t shared yet…I’ll work on this).
I hope you enjoy these as much as we did. Since we weren’t feeling very gluttonous this past Sunday, we didn’t feel like eating all 24 phyllo triangles, so I ended up freezing a batch of them. I’ll come back and update this once we cook them up to see if they can survive the icy freezer. Please share in the comments if you challenged yourself to “stop pinning and start doing” this week!
Chipotle Shrimp & Avocado Phyllo Triangles
6 sheets phyllo, thawed
cooking spray
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 lb shrimp, chopped
1 tsp + 1/2 tsp chipotle chili powder
1/4 + 1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 1/2 avocados, diced
1/2 mango, diced
1/4 small red onion, small diced
1/2 jalepeno, minced (you can keep the seeds in or take them out, depending on how much heat you want)
juice of 1/2 a lime
Preheat oven to 375ºF. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray
Heat olive oil in a non-stick pan over medium-high heat. Combine shrimp with 1 tsp chipotle chili powder, 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. Saute the shrimp in the hot pan for 4 minutes (don’t worry if the shrimp isn’t fully cooked, it will finish cooking in the oven). Pour into a large mixing bowl and allow to cool for a few minutes – you could use this time to dice your veggies.
Combine the remaining ingredients – avocados through lime juice – into the bowl with the shrimp (minus the phyllo dough of course). Work with one sheet of phyllo dough at a time, and keep the remaining sheets under a damp towel (otherwise it will crack and you won’t be able to work with it). Slice the sheet horizontally into 4 sheets (you’ll end up with 24 of these long, skinny sheets in total). Place 1 Tbsp of the shrimp & avocado mixture at the bottom of the sheet, then fold over into a triangle, and continue folding into triangles until you run out of dough. Place the triangle onto the prepared baking sheet and spray with cooking spray. Continue with the remaining 23 sheets of phyllo.
Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Serve hot/warm. We ate this with Siracha because it’s soooo tasty.
Makes 24 triangles.
Greek Salad
Posted by Gorging George in Salad on October 31, 2011
Happy Halloween family & friends! I don’t have any goulish recipes to share with you today. Just a quick and tasty salad I’m sharing for a friend. A friend who forgot to cook supper tonight for her and her husband; who recently discovered she has a gluten intolerance, and who I just discovered has a husband who loves Greek food. So here’s one you can make sometime this week. Gluten free and (hopefully) husband approved!
I’ve already shared a Greekish salad before…and mentioned some people’s aversion to this easy-peasy dish. I guess it does show up at every potluck. But I still welcome the combination of all those tasty, salty bits in the salad. And this one has an added bonus: avocado! I literally eat this stuff by the spoonful – sometimes mashed onto bread with olive oil; sometimes lightly sprinkled with lemon juice and soy sauce; and sometimes just right out of the skin and into my belly. This recipe comes from Jamie Oliver’s Cook with Jamie book, my go-to book when I need something dreamy to look at (err) a tasty dinner idea – every recipe I’ve tried has been amazing. Buy it NOW if you don’t already own it!
Hope your Halloween was not too frightful – I may be having nightmares about someone forgetting to feed me!!
Jamie’s Greek Salad with Avocado
Adapted from Cook with Jamie by Jamie Oliver
2 avocados
1 lemon
4 plum (roma) tomatoes, cut into 1/2″ chunks
handful of kalamata olives
1 shallot, finely diced
12 oz feta cheese, cut into cubes
1 tsp dried oregano (+ a little extra to sprinkle on the finished salad)
red wine vinegar
extra virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/8 fresh ground pepper
1 head romaine - tender, inner leaves only – torn into pieces, then washed & dried
Peel and pit your avocado, then slice into into wedges. Toss gently with a bit of lemon juice (less than 1/2 that lemon). With your hands, gently mix together the avocados, tomatoes, olives, shallot, feta cheese, oregano, a couple small splashes of red wine vinegar, the salt & pepper, and about 1 Tbsp of the olive oil. Set aside for about 5 minutes. Add the romaine lettuce to the bowl, then sprinkle about 1 Tbsp of lemon juice over everything (about 1/2 a lemon). Give the salad one more gentle toss. Drizzle the finished with a bit more olive oil and sprinkle some more oregano over everything.
Serves 4.
Grilled Bread with Salmon & Avocado
Posted by Gorging George in Sandwiches, Seafood on September 13, 2011
A couple months ago I was reading through Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa How Easy is That? cookbook and came across an appetizer recipe that I had to try during the summer months. Bread drizzled with olive oil and grilled, then rubbed with raw garlic and topped with prosciutto and smoked mozzarella, then given a quick turn back on the grill to melt the cheese. It sounded like a perfect start to any meal. Heck, it sounded like a meal in and of itself – especially when I’m alone and cheese, bread, and charcuterie is all I need.
I made this exactly as Ina instructs. However my grocery store didn’t have any smoked mozzarella, and I wasn’t going to race around town for one ingredient. Luckily smoked Gouda was in the deli, so I picked up a wedge and breathed in the smokey scent – it would work just fine. The bruschetta-esque starter was served before a family meal of beautifully crimson red salmon fresh from BC. The fish traveled all the way from Vancouver Island along with Kyle’s mom and step-dad who were visiting us while in town for a sailing race (that lasted over 2 days!). This recipe is a must for feeding hungry mouths, on the brink of starvation and barely containing themselves before dinner. One piece suffices to quell the growling stomachs … however, no one would say “no” to another. You can find the recipe online here. On the Food Network site, the title of the recipe is slightly altered, so if you’re looking for it in your copy of How Easy is That? it’s called “grilled bread with prosciutto.”
I was inspired after eating this recipe to try some more ingredients on top of garlicky grilled bread. One night there was a basic snack, where garlic was rubbed on the grilled bread, followed by rubbing a cut tomato on the rough toasty surface, leaving the juices and seeds to be devoured. That was delicious – I suggest you make a quick version of this right now: toast some bread, drizzle with olive oil, rub with garlic, rub with cut tomato, eat. Now thank me.
I then utilized the leftovers from the aforementioned salmon meal to make a quick dinner-for-one that I devoured greedily – Sorry Kyle, you missed out! The coral salmon was reheated in our handy-dandy toaster oven and piled onto a few grilled bread slices, then topped with creamy green avocados. It was divine and I as so consumed by the flavour party in my mouth that I forgot I was eating alone. What are some of your favourite toppings for grilled bread?
Grilled Bread with Salmon & Avocado
You can serve this with cold or warm/hot salmon. Whichever your preference may be. I served mine slightly hot.
2 thick slices good Italian or French bread (preferably from a boule)
extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove
4 – 6 oz salmon, cooked
1/2 avocado, sliced
salt and pepper
fresh chives, chopped
Preheat grill to medium-high heat.
Drizzle the bread with olive oil. Grill the bread for approximately 2-3 minutes per side, until slightly charred. Remove from grill and rub one side vigorously with garlic. Top both slices evenly with the salmon (place salmon on garlic-rubbed side). Top salmon with slices of avocado. Drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste and shower your dinner with the freshly chopped chives.
Serves 1.
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