Avocado salsa with paprika cracker cups

eye spy ...

Serves for 6

Ingredients:

·         4 medium fresh tomatoes

·         ½ medium green pepper

·         ½ medium yellow pepper

·         ½ medium orange pepper

·         2 medium ready to eat avocados

·         2 limes to serve with

·         1 red onion

·         1 garlic clove

·         Olive oil

·         1 whole lime zest

·         Salt

·         Big hand full of fresh coriander

·         6 paprika cracker cups (see previous post)

 

Method:

Wash and cut the tomatoes, sweet peppers in the same size. Thinly slice the onion in a way to obtain half circles.

Halve the avocado, remove the stone, score and bathe in lime juice. Chop the coriander.

In a big bowl, combine, the tomatoes, peppers, red onion, crush the garlic on top, add the lime zest, coriander & salt toss.

Serve the avocado in the cracker cups with the salsa on the side. Drizzle with oil and leave the guest to squeeze the lime on their own plate…

Enjoy!

Don’t forget to let me know what you think! x

Fried plantain & Ginger butter beans starter

Starter for 4 people.

Fried plantain & Ginger butter beans serve with flash fried cherry tomato, avocado and a green salad.

Ingredients:

·         250g butter beans  

·         1 garlic clove

·         3 cherry tomatoes

·         30g red onion

·         1 ready to eat avocado

·         Lettuce

·         Handful of fresh coriander

·         10g fresh ginger

·         Dry thyme

·         Salt & Pepper

·         Chilli flakes (optional)

·         Olive oil

·         Plantain

·         1 lime

Method:

Start by draining and rinsing the beans. Set aside. Dice the garlic, onion and 1 cherry tomato. Peel and grate the ginger, then cut in 4 each the other 2 of the cherry tomatoes (you should have 8 tomato wedges altogether).

1) Flash fry the quartered cherry tomatoes: Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil add 1 pinch of salt, thyme and the tomato. Toss fry for 1 minute. Remove from heat and set aside in a bowl for later

Flash fried cherry tomato

2) Cook the beans in ginger: In the same frying pan, add and heat 2 tablespoons olive oil. Add the diced onion and fry for a minute. Add the beans and grated ginger. Stir, add salt and pepper as well as 200ml water then cover to simmer for 20 minutes. This will allow the beans to soften and really absorb the flavours. All the water to evaporate, but to not let the pan dry as we need the bean to be slightly wet.


Ginger butterbeans

3) Fry the plantain: The ideal frying plantain should be uniformly yellow with both end still slightly green. When fried it will still be just sweet enough and firm. A very ripe plantain tends to be too sweet, absorbs a lot of oil and can be very sticky.

So, peel the plantain and cut it as on the picture on the right, about 1cm thick each. A whole plantain should provide about 10-12 slices.

 

Peeled plantain

The plantain can be fried in a chip pan with a lot of oil. If using this option, heat the oil as if for French fires, then drop the plantain pieces in and allow to fry and brown all over or 2 minutes an half.

If you do not have a chip pan, just us a frying pan, and pour in about 200ml of vegetable oil. Allow the oil to really heat up, then carefully place the pieces of plantain in one single layer. Fry each side for 1 minute or minute and a half, then turn over to do the same for the other side. If the the fire is too high, the plantain will burn. Turn down the heat if necessary and continue. If the heat is too low, the plantain will absorb too much oil. Not ideal.

Raw & fried plantain

Whichever method you choose to fry the plantain, once the plantain is fried, remove from oil, place on absorbing tissue and lightly dust with salt.

I served the plantain topped with the ginger butter beans and the flash fried cherry tomato all held with a tooth pick… with an avocado, coriander and chilli flakes salad.

4) Making the green salad: select the greenest leaves of the lettuce, wash them individually under the tap and roughly cut them. Do the same for the handful of fresh coriander.

Mix both in a salad bowl and sprinkle with chilli flakes. Just before serving, drizzle with olive oil and serve with slices of avocado and lime wedges as no vinaigrettes will be needed.

Serve as suggested below.

Voila!

I have done another version yellow plantain and ginger beans before on the blog as mains… see it by clicking this link http://all-vegan.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/red-kidney-beans-cooked-in-garlic-and.html

There are indeed many ways to cook the same ingredients… Celery vas never only made for houmous.

Enjoy!

Beetroot and avocado wrap

Serving suggestion with red currants

4 ingredients:

·         The Wraps
·         Beetroot spread
·         Avocado
·         Mix leaves salad

 The only prep needed is peeling and cutting the avocado length ways and about 2cm width.

Ingredients

Beet spread - Has chilli in it

To make the beet spread see the recipe on one of the previous posts here

This is there just because I like it!

Excellent for lazy afternoon snacks, just using left overs... the beet spread is really hot as in chilli hot and the current overly acidic... The Avocado here almost play the roll of a plain natural yogurt as a calming agent on my assaulted tastes buds.

Lovely!

Spaghetti plant carbonara with avocado cream

Shaz pic of the monster - Also called spaghetti squash

Before my friend Shaz mention this the Spaghetti plantvegetable, I have never heard of the thing. Her dad grew this in the allotment and she gave me half of the monster so I can create something original. I came up with a vegan version of carbonara.

 

This dish was created completely off hand and for the first time as are most dishes on this blog.

Ingredient for 3:

200g Spaghetti plant (cooked & deseeded)
2 ripe small avocados
100 red cabbage
50g of whole dried Shiitake mushrooms
1 medium onion
100 ml of rice milk
5 garlic cloves
Sunflower oil
1 stock cube

 Prep:

1 - Cut the spaghetti plant in big wedges so they can fit in a single pot. Place the wedges in the pot face up with just enough water to produce steam. Cover the pot and steam for 20 minutes. When this vegetable is cooked it actually become stringy like very thin spaghettis.

Ready avocado cream

2 - Remove the veges from the stove and let cool down. Once cooled. Take it apart and remove the pips then, separate the strings and rinse out all the starch. Squeeze out the water and set aside.

3 - Now peel the avocadoes, chop a put in a mixer. Add the rice milk and the peeled garlic cloves. Blend and set aside.

4 - As for the Shiitake mushrooms, remove them from the package and place in a bowl with the stock cube. Pour over it about 150ml of boiling water. Leave to hydrate for about 30 minutes, then remove from the water and roughly cut them in 3 or 4 pieces each. Do not throw away the water as it will be used in the cooking later.

5 - Take about 10 leaves of red cabbage and slice them finely. Set aside do the same for the onion.

Method:
In a hot wok, heat 4 table spoons of sunflower oil, throw in the finely slices onion and brown for about 2 minutes. Drop in the mushrooms with a pinch of salt continue to stir, then add the chopped cabbage and the stock. Cover and let simmer for 5 minutes.

By now the mushrooms and cabbage should be well flavoured. Now, add the “spaghetti” and mix well adding black pepper and adjust the salt. Add the avocado cream and mix well making sure that the cream is well incorporated.

Cover the pot, and turn the heat down. Keep an eye on it and stir from time to time to allow the liquid from the cream to dry out a bit. By now, the cream should be sticking to the other vegetable in the pot. 

After the avocado cream is incorporated, the pot should only remain on the fire for about 5 minutes as everything goes so quick.

It is ready.

Serving suggestion

Note: This dish tasted really good! Using avocado as cream really came up in a dream (I know crazy right?), but, I had never heard of it before. I will definitely use avocado in other dishes that call for cream in the future. The texture is really original and the shiitake mushroom gave the chewiness needed in such dish. I am really surprise that the spaghetti plant despite the cooking and the manipulation didn’t disintegrate… Wow. Two unknown in ingredients, one great dish!