Asparagus, Tomato & Avocado Salad

HOWDY my friends...I hope that everyone enjoyed a blessed Easter weekend.  Our weekend was wonderfully busy hosting our annual family reunion BBQ bash (204 in attendance this year!), but Easter Sunday was much more laid back and relaxed as a much smaller group of us attended church and had lunch together to celebrate the resurrection of our precious Lord Jesus!  Then hubby & I enjoyed a nice, S-L-O-W, afternoon watching old movies, and being determined to put off any major party follow-up tasks (cleaning the house and putting away all the stuff, etc.) until later in the week.

It was a very refreshing, uplifting weekend for me, filled with fun, food, family & friends AND a glorious celebration of the resurrection!  Thanks God...I needed that!

Anyway...now that I'm getting back to "real life", I thought I'd share an incredibly yummy recipe I found over on my friend Kathleen's blog last week.  Asparagus and avocado sounded like an interesting combination, so I just had to try it out.  It was so yummy, my hubby didn't even get much (just his initial serving. and he really liked it too), as I promptly cleaned out the entire bowl!  And yes, I even licked out all the good stuff at the end! 

We were busy with our Easter party preparations, so we didn't have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen last week.  This recipe was really quick & easy, so it fit the bill perfectly.  I served it with some simple pan-seared pork chops (just plain pork chops seasoned with little seasoned salt).  YUM!  Kathleen served hers with some broiled salmon, which sounds good too.  I also think it would go well with just about any grilled or broiled meat...or just by itself.

Asparagus, Tomato & Avocado Salad

For salad:
1 bunch of fresh asparagus (I prefer to use the small stemmed asparagus)
1 pint of cherry (or grape) tomatoes (halved)
1 Haas avocado, ripe (I think I used 2 small avocados)
Mexican crumbling cheese - optional (I added this, and we really liked it.  I think Feta cheese would be good too.  Heck, if you really want to go crazy, some crumbled bacon would probably be delish!)

 
For dressing:
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp whole grain mustard
juice of one medium lemon
kosher salt, fresh cracked pepper & granulated garlic to taste (I added the garlic, 'cause I LOVE garlic...feel free to leave it out if you don't.)

Whisk together dressing ingredients, and let stand to allow the flavors to develop while you assemble the salad.

Trim or snap the tough stem ends of asparagus and discard.  Cut the spears into bite-sized pieces.  In a large skillet (with a lid), bring enough water to cover bottom bottom of pan and a pinch of salt to a boil.  Add asparagus, cover and boil for three minutes.  Quickly remove from heat and rinse in cold water to STOP cooking, and keep it crisp.  Drain well.

Cube avocado, and toss with the asparagus and tomatoes in a large bowl. 

Pour dressing over salad and serve.  (NOTE:  I did NOT use all the dressing...just enough to flavor it all, not drown it.  :-)  The leftover dressing is delicious on a regular green salad, or a tomato/cucumber salad too.  I'm going to have to keep that as a separate recipe for future use as well.)

We'll DEFINITELY be having this again...soon!  Be sure to give it a try, I can't recommend it highly enough.

As a side note, I'm a huge fan of avocados...they taste good, AND they're very nutritious.  I came across this website with all kinds of interesting information about avocados, and tons of recipes.  Can't wait to try some of them.

Okay...enough rambling for today.  TRY THIS RECIPE!!!  (Did I already say that?!)  Then let me know what you think.  And don't forget to stop by and say hello to Kathleen, and thank her for passing it along! 

Blessings,
--Faithy 

Happy Cinco de Mayo!!

HOWDY!
Just thought I'd pop in and revisit my Cinco de Mayo Cookie recipe.  They're colorful, festive and fun to make, not to mention yummy.  It's also fun to get reactions from folks when you tell them the ingredients!  LOL!

You can find the recipe on my earlier blog post by clicking on this LINK!

May your day be filled with joy overflowing!!
Blessings,
--Faithy

Cinco de Mayo Cookies

I had some time to experiment in the kitchen this past weekend, so I tried several new recipes.  I found a recipe for Crunchy Tortilla Chip Cookies with Avocado Frosting over at Jazzy Gourmet Cooking Studio (by Sherry K).  It intrigued me so much that I just had to try it.  I’ve tried several sweet treats made with avocados in the past 10 years (avocado ice cream, avocado smoothies, avocado cream pie, etc.), and they were wonderful, so I figured this would probably be good too.  I also figured it would be fun to test it out on my family WITHOUT telling them what the “secret” ingredients were.  I was right.  NOBODY guessed, and everyone thought they were pretty good.

I made the frosting first, because I couldn’t wait to try it.  I started out making it exactly by the original recipe, but I thought the avocado flavor was a bit strong, and it was a little thicker than I wanted it to be…so…I added more powdered sugar, Neufchatel cheese (‘cause I LOVE that stuff!) and more lime juice, and came up with the version listed below.  I really like the avocado/lime combination though…very nice…AND…the acid in the lime juice keeps the avocados from browning in your frosting!

I made my usual adaptations to the cookie recipe, and then (…since I was experimenting…) thought I’d play with it some more.

My first batch was the plain ones - pretty much following the original recipe.  I added miniature chocolate chips to the second batch, just to liven them up.  Then, I was thinking that if I’m going to call these “Cinco de Mayo Cookies” (because I don’t want the name to give away the ingredients!), I wanted to follow along with a Mexican-style theme.

Cinnamon and chocolate are commonly used together in Mexican cooking, so…I thought…”I’ll try adding some cinnamon!”  I also had some extra coconut in the freezer that was calling out to be used…so…I thought…“coconut is a common ingredient in Mexican sweets too…let’s add that!”

Anyway…each batch had an additional ingredient added LOL!  Happily, the final batch (with ALL the additions) was my personal favorite, so that’s the recipe I’m sharing with you.  If you don’t like any of my additions, just leave them out…or go try Sherry K’s original recipe.

Either way…if you’re looking for something different, and FUN to make for your friends…give this recipe a try.  You can even use the cookies as a party game if you have folks try to guess the ingredients!

I posted this picture of the ingredients on my Facebook page before I made them, asking people to guess what I was making.  I got all kinds of interesting answers, but nobody guessed cookies.  Hee, hee!

Cinco de Mayo Cookies

Cookies:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened (but NOT melted)

1/4 cup DiabetiSweet sugar substitute (or regular sugar - I know this alone doesn’t make the recipe diabetic friendly, but it does reduce the calories!  Besides, I recently found a bunch of this stuff on a clearance sale for a GREAT price, and wanted to try it out.  It’s really good!)

1/4 cup brown sugar (I found out that DiabetiSweet also makes a brown sugar substitute…if it’s as good as their regular variety, you’ll love it!)

1/4 cup HEB Real Egg (the original recipe calls for 1 egg yolk)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour (you can use all-purpose flour if you prefer)

1 cup crushed tortilla chips (I used yellow corn tortilla chips when testing this recipe.  They have a little stronger flavor than the white ones, so I think I will probably use white corn ones in the future.)

1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)

1 cup miniature chocolate chips (optional)

1 cup flaked coconut (optional)

zest of 2 limes (optional - save some to sprinkle.the tops with)

Frosting:

1 cup mashed ripe avocado

4 ounces Neufchatel cheese, softened (or regular cream cheese)

1-1/2 cups powdered sugar

2 Tablespoons lime juice (you can use the bottled kind, but fresh is SOOOO much better!)

1/8 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350° F.

In a large mixer bowl, cream together butter and sugars.  Add egg (or egg yolk) and vanilla, mixing until combined and fluffy.  Stir in flour and crushed tortilla chips.  Once mixed, stir in any optional ingredients you decide to try.  

Using your favorite sized cookie scoop (or a teaspoon) drop 1 inch apart onto a parchment lined baking sheet and flatten slightly.  (I forgot to flatten the first 2 pans full…they tasted fine, but took a little longer to cook…AND were a little more difficult to frost!  Also, if you don’t have parchment paper, just use an ungreased cookie sheet.)

Bake at 350°F. for 12-15 minutes, or until edges start to brown.

While cookies are baking, combine avocado, cream cheese, powdered sugar, lime juice and salt in a small bowl, and mix well.  (I actually just dumped all the ingredients into my food processor and pulsed it all until it reached the consistency I wanted.  This way I didn’t have to mash the avocados first.  Feel free to adjust the amounts of the frosting ingredients to suit your own taste preferences…that’s what I did!)  Set aside.

After baking, allow cookies to cool on the cookie sheet for a couple of minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Once your cookies have cooled completely, you can frost them with the avocado/lime frosting, then sprinkle the tops with lime zest.  (I completely forgot to use the zest, but I’m sure it would make the cookies even prettier, and give them an extra zing of flavor!)

Depending on the size of your cookie scoop, this recipe will make 3 to 4 dozen cookies.

If you try these, please let me know what you think…and what other ingredients you may have played with while making your own variation of them.

Remember, if you like them, be sure to go give Sherry K a shout out, and tell her that Faithy sent you!

Blessings,

--Faithy