Blue Cayenne

I’ve lived in my home for forty-seven years and for most of that time we had an enormous Haas avocado tree in our back yard. Talk about an embarrassment of riches! In addition to the abundance of avocados we had to eat and give away year after year, we also had the prettiest possums in the neighborhood–their coats silken and glossy from feasting on our tree’s crop. Then, a few years ago, the tree went into a decline and I had to have it removed. That was a dark day. To my great chagrin, I am now (avocado) treeless. Bummer.

I have not lost my taste for avocados though, and, thanks to Costco, I’m able to keep my fruit bowl well-stocked. That is a very good thing since avocados are a healthy food choice.

Avocados, technically a single-seeded berry, are a sodium-free and cholesterol-free fruit that acts as a nutrient booster by increasing the body’s ability to absorb a number of vitamins including vitamins A, D. K, and E. Avocados are also a nutrient-dense food. According to the California Avocado Commission, a fifth of an avocado contains only 50 calories but delivers nearly twenty vitamins and minerals to the human body. (Who, by the way, was the person at the CAC who concluded that a fifth of an avocado was a serving? NO ONE has the willpower to eat just one-fifth of an avocado! Ever. Am I right about this?)

A native to Central America, the Haas avocados most commonly grown here in southern California are related to avocados that originated in Guatemala and contain almost no sugar or starch. A Haas avocado can contain as much as 30% oil–making it one of the fattiest plant foods in existence. Harold McGee in his book Of Food and Cooking says that, at 30% oil content, the avocado can be compared to a piece of well-marbled meat. Don’t despair, though. The health advantage of the avocado’s oil (over that of meat) is that it is largely monounsaturated–the “good fat” as the Haas Avocado Board and numerous health experts like to point out. The oil in avocados is generally credited with a number of health benefits including the reduction of inflammation in the body and the reduction of LDL bad cholesterol.

To maximize the health benefits of eating avocados, the experts recommend that you select an avocado with a “slight neck” rather than one that is rounded at the top. The slight neck is an indication that the avocado was ripened on the tree and predicts that the avocado will have a better flavor than one that is picked unripe. Those experts also recommend that you carefully peel your avocado to protect the darker green flesh that lies just below the avocado’s skin, flesh that is particularly rich in healthy carotenoids. To do this, the California Avocado Commission suggests that you use the “nick and peel” method:  “Cut the avocado lengthwise. Hold both halves and twist them in opposite directions until they separate. Remove the seed and cut each of the halves lengthwise into long quarter sections. Using your thumb and index finger, grip the edge of the skin on each quarter and peel it off, the same way you do with a banana skin.”

Apparently, avocados’ benefits go beyond nutrition, too. A “Healthy Living” column in The Huffington Post credits the fruit with properties that can help repair damaged hair, moisturize dry skin, treat sunburn and minimize wrinkles. I’m so onto that last one!

Here is an excellent avocado salad dressing recipe.  I’ve been wanting to find a good avocado-cilantro salad dressing for a very long time. The marriage of avocado and cilantro has seemed like a natural to me.

I think you will enjoy this dressing.

Avocado-Cilantro Salad Dressing

10 minPrep Time

10 minTotal Time

Save Recipe

Print Recipe

My Recipes My Lists My Calendar

Ingredients

• 3/4 C. milk
• Juice of 1/2 a lemon
• 1/4 C. fresh cilantro (chopped)
• 1 fresh medium jalapeño pepper (seeds removed) chopped
• 1 medium Haas avocado
• 1 clove garlic (minced)
• 2 T. chopped green onion
• Juice of one lime
• 1/8 t. ground cumin
• 1/4 t. ground pepper
• 1/2 t. kosher salt

Instructions

1. Put all of the ingredients into your blender and blend until smooth.
2. You can leave the seeds in the jalapeño pepper if you want your dressing a bit more spicy.

Notes

You can add extra milk to the dressing to thin it.

Nutrition

Calories

14 cal

Carbs

3 g

Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info

7.8.1.2

59

https://bluecayenne.com/avocado-cilantro-salad-dressing

My recipe is an adaptation of one that appeared on the Skinny Taste blog. Here is a link to the original recipe:  Zesty Avocado Cilantro Buttermilk Dressing

SaveSave

Interesting article about using salt in foods from today’s New York Times.

NY Times: The Single Most Important Ingredient

Olive oil in a cake? Yuck.

Don’t get me wrong. I love olive oil. I regularly drive to Los Alamitos’ Antica Olive Oil store to buy the best olive oils I can find. There, I enthusiastically swirl, sniff, sip and swallow  the various offerings freshly poured from the fusti, searching for the olive oil with the most grassy flavor and the most peppery bite–all the better if it is chock-full of polyphenol antioxidants.

I’m hooked.

But putting three-fourths of a cup of the pungent stuff in a cake? I dunno. Seems wrong to me.

On the other hand, the olive oil cake in this month’s Cook’s Illustrated Magazine had me intrigued. True, I’ve been seeing olive oil cakes in a number of publications in recent years, but up until now I’ve simply registered the idea as an engaging one and quietly slid the copied recipe to the bottom of what is my burgeoning stack of “to try” recipes. But, if Cook’s Illustrated touts a recipe, my cooking instincts told me, it must be good.

Too, I let my heart get away from me at last week’s farmers’ market. I bought six baskets of exquisite organic strawberries. However you cut it them, that is a whole lot of strawberries for one lady and a small sweet dog to consume. So, I was looking for something interesting to serve as a strawberry shortcake. Olive oil cake? Why not?

It turns out that the distinct taste of a fruity olive oil complements the slightly sweet flavor of the cake.

Here is the link to the Cook’s Illustrated article about olive oil cakes: https://www.cooksillustrated.com/articles/462-olive-oil-cake

Yields 8 Servings

Olive Oil Cake

20 minPrep Time

40 minCook Time

1 hrTotal Time

Save Recipe

Print Recipe

My Recipes My Lists My Calendar

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 C. (8 3/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
• 1 t. baking powder
• 3/4 t. salt
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/4 C. (8 3/4 ounces) plus 2 T. sugar
• 2/4 t. grated lemon zest
• 3/4 C. extra-virgin olive oil
• 3/4 C. milk

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Grease a 9-inch springform pan.
3. Whisk flour, baking powder and salt until ingredients are well-distributed. Set aside.
4. Using the whisk attachment of your stand mixer, whisk eggs until they are foamy, about one minute with mixer set on medium speed. Add 1 1/4 C. sugar and the lemon zest to the egg mixture. Continue to whisk the mixture until it is pale yellow (about three minutesI). With mixer set on medium speed, slowly drizzle the oil into the egg mixture until the oil is completely combined with the eggs (about one minute).
5. Turn mixer speed down to low speed, and mix in one half of the flour mixture. Mix for about one minute until the flour is completely incorporated. You will need to use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the mixer bowl as you mix in the flour. Add the milk and mix for about thirty seconds. Mix in the remaining flour just until it is incorporated (about one minute).
6. Scrape down the sides of the mixer bowl and scoop the batter into prepared springform pan.
7. Sprinkle two T. sugar over the surface of the batter.
8. Bake cake at 350 degrees F. for approximately 40-45 minutes on the middle rack in your oven. You want the top of the cake to be a pretty golden brown when the cake is finished.
9. When a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out with only a few crumbs, remove cake from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes. The top of the cake is going to crack, so don't worry when that happens. Then, release the sides of the springform pan and leave cake on your counter to cool completely (1 1/2 hours).

Nutrition

Calories

269 cal

Fat

4 g

Carbs

49 g

Protein

8 g

Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info

7.8.1.2

54

https://bluecayenne.com/olive-oil-cake