Pear avocado salad

While a pear salad with chicken could be served as a main dish, one with avocado and nuts does much better as a side.  In this case, make the dressing first.  In a food processor, combine:

• Apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 avocado (mostly for the oil)
• Olive oil (because an avocado won't yield enough)
• Ground coriander
• Just a dash of cinnamon
• 2 cloves garlic
• ~ 3/4 inch of jalapeno

Pulse until that is well combined.  For the salad itself, simply combine:

• 1/3 bunch of spinach, hand torn
• 2 pears (bosc and anjou work here as well), cubed small
• 1 avocado plus the remaining half, sliced or cubed
• Scant half cup of almond, rough chopped

Dress, toss, serve immediately.  The mild heat from the jalapeno brings out the pears' sweetness, which is further enhanced by the coriander and cinnamon.

Actually good vegetarian tacos

Vegetarian tacos are boring.  There, I said it.  A rice/bean mixture in a corn tortilla just isn't the most exciting thing in the world even if you've managed to throw together some really tasty rice and some time-tested beans. As it turns out, those do much better in a flour tortilla together, but that's another discussion for another day.

So you get creative.  And maybe you have to throw in an under-appreciated starchy vegetable.  And maybe, just maybe, you've been playing with some of the more esoteric uses of a food processor.  You might come up with something like this.

Part the first: a bean salad.

In a large bowl, combine 2 cans or 1lb of (soaked, cooked, etc) black beans, well-drained.  Throw in a a can of corn.  Perhaps pull out a can of olives, slice that up, and add.  While you're on knife work, dice a red onion finely -- and half a medium jicama, a bit less fine.

Set that aside; it won't need dressing for these purposes and you'll have plenty of leftovers that you can dress as you go.

Part the second: purée.  In a food processor, combine the following:

• 1 avocado
• a modest amount of corn or olive oil
• a dash or two of red wine vinegar
• juice (and pulp; why not) of 1 lime
• red pepper flake to taste
• small amounts of garlic (powder is fine here)
• a pinch of salt

Blend that puppy until smooth.  If you need a bit more liquid, add either oil or vinegar based on taste and overall texture.  Oh, and if you're making ahead or in a large batch, be sure to retain an avocado pit to keep from browning before serving.

And that's it.  Toast yourself up some corn tortillas, layer on the purée, bean mixture, and whatever loose greens you have around.  You might note that this is not just vegetarian at this point, but also vegan.  Feel free to keep it that way -- or sneak in cheese and yogurt.  And there you go: interesting tacos that don't depend on all the usual ingredients.

BLTs

Sometimes simplicity wins out.  For me, this often has to do with it being before noon (aka breakfast time), but it can obviously carry on throughout the day depending on your priorities (and the ingredients, of course).  And some classics just call for it.

So, BLTs.  Two versions here, both dead simple in their basic form.  They're definitely toaster oven fare once you get past the bacon itself (and I don't actually object to resorting to a microwave here even if it does come off better in a cast iron skillet every single time).  But the idea remains the same: pick a flavor profile, add a minor twist, and enjoy.

Version one

1. Cook your bacon
2. Toast a split bagel under a broiler, tossing on a grated hard italian cheese halfway through
3. Add either sliced or diced tomato
4. Add bacon, chopped works well here
5. Add a green of your choice; I like spinach but an actual italian green would do very well
6. Layer on alfalfa sprouts (or whatever bean sprouts you happen to have around; mung is particularly nice for the added crunch)

Asiago bagels are an obvious choice here, but onion, garlic, everything, etc all work fine.  As does plain, really.  Just make sure you crush down the top once you're done layering; they become quite unwieldy without some manual encouragement.  Cut in  half and enjoy.  Maybe make two if you're hungry or, ahem, want to use a whole tomato.

Version two

Closer to my heart, of course.  This is the simple version.  If you just happen to have fresh-roasted green hatch this might be the best BLT in the entire history of mankind.

1. Again, cook bacon, slice or chop it
2. Toast a fairly hearty bread
3. Melt a thin layer of cojack on the bread; again, using a toaster oven is easiest here
4. Add sliced, canned green chile
5. Layer your tomato, in this case chopped probably is better
6. Add your choice of lettuce; again I like spinach but romaine isn't bad

Slice.  Eat.  Make another.

If you wanted to go crazy you could, I don't know:

1. Replace the bread with a sopapilla, stuff the ingredients, make sure you're using good chile, and smother in a red sauce.  But then, that would be complicated, wouldn't it?
2. Just  use a tortilla to wrap said ingredients, making sure to chop the bacon, and call it a BLT burrito.  Maybe even add a salsa or guacamole to finish it.

But now we're straying back into complicated, aren't we?

(For the sake of completeness, I should link to a post from Farmgirl Fare on pita in general and another great option for BLTs that I've always wanted to try.  Baking at altitude, especially if you're inept in the first place, has proven a problem.)

6.0221415 mashed salad

Umm.  Chemistry jokes are in right now, right?











Ok, so no.  So this is guacamole.  If you've never done it yourself, fix that. If you have, learn to go for minimalism; avocados are in season.

For some magical reason, the local grocery store has ripe avocados on the shelf.  This, for the record, never happens. Most avocados are firm and slightly, umm, bitter?  At least when you buy them.  But apparently right now they're just slightly soft and perfect for just slicing into, which is good, because I wasn't about to give them enough time to ripen to that state.

So, a very, very basic guacamole.  Combine in a suitable bowl:

• 2 ripe avocados, type doesn't really matter as long as they're about medium sized, but do reserve one pit
• 1 roma tomato, diced
• Juice of 1 lime
• Either some very finely diced garlic or two or three dashes of powdered garlic

And that's it.  Just stop.  Don't add onions.  Don't add anything to heat it up.  It just isn't needed.  A good guacamole should bring out the avocado flavor, not smother it and use the guacamole as an agent.

Mash by hand.  It's actually fun if the avocados are ripe; they squish like playdough.  Make sure everything is well-combined, wash up a bit, and then serve with chips or whatever else.

_____________________
On the title?  It's a pun.  That is all.

Avocado/tangerine salad

Simple as can be.

Chop:

• 1 avocado
• 2 tangerines
• A decent amount of goat cheese
• Two handfuls of almonds

Combine that with spinach.  Dress with:

• Sesame oil
• White wine vinegar (rice wine vinegar would work here too)
• Ground ginger
• Garlic powder

And that's it.  The flavors blend extremely well what with the sweet from the tangerines and almonds, the sour goat cheese, and the various spices (plus whatever it is that avocado has).  The textures work well varying from the crunchy almonds down to the almost melty cheese and avocado.

In a large enough batch this could be a meal.