There’s Always Something New for Cooks to Learn

 

Here is a little-known fact about avocadoes. If you cook them or heat them in any way, they are very likely to taste bitter. If you must add pieces of avocado to Tortilla Soup or any other dish that you traditionally serve hot, add them at the very last minute when the dish is on its way to the table. Avoid heating avocadoes as there is no way to get rid of the resulting unpleasant flavor.

            For more easy recipes, order "Help! My Apartment Has a Kitchen!"

Salad Need Not Be Boring!

My ideas about salad often revert to iceberg lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber—the salad of my youth.  So I am particularly thrilled when friends send me their salad recipes.  My friend Grace Markarian shared a recipe that I would like to pass on.  It is an inventive use of cooked and raw vegetables, quinoa and spices.

Mom Cooking Tip 141

If your bananas or avocados are taking too long to ripen, put them in a paper bag, close the bag and set aside for a day or two.  Check occasionally to make sure they’re not over-ripening. 

                                                            See all my Cooking Tips!

Avocado Toast

I need to get in the Avocado Toast business, now that I realize some people will pay $17 for something I can make for less than a dollar. And that includes homemade wholegrain bread.

I’m not usually on the cutting edge of restaurant dishes, and I’m probably behind the curve on this one too.  But I am a big fan of avocados. 

I didn’t discover this fruit until I was an adult and went grocery shopping with a friend.  He mentioned that his mother often served avocados so I bought one as a dinner side dish.  Regrettably he didn’t mention that avocados are only really edible when they’re ripe.  Under-ripe avocados, which are rock-like, have no taste, and once you cut into them they will not ripen further.  Over-ripe avocados are usually mushy, riddled with black spots and have an off  taste.

In their natural just-ripe state, avocados have a delicate flavor.  Good Seasons Italian Salad Dressing poured into the cavity where the very large avocado seed once was boosts the taste.  Check out this link.  This was my go-to appetizer when I lived in London.

Avocado Toast is a good alternative.

Mom Money-Saving Tip 88

If you like eating fresh avocados, never freeze them.  Their texture as well as their taste will change for the worse.  I buy only as many as my family can eat before they over-ripen.  Otherwise, I'm wasting my money.

                                                        See all my Money-Saving Tips!

Mom Cooking Tip 113

If you want to ripen a rock-hard avocado, enclose it in a paper bag for a day or two.  It will soften right up.

See all my Cooking Tips!

Mom Cooking Tip 99

Kiwi Slices

Use an egg slicer to slice hard-boiled eggs and other foods into slender slices.  The foods, which need to be semi-soft, could include bananas, kiwis, strawberries, avocados, pieces of ripe peach, apple or pear (skin side away from the blades), as well as nearly-cooked carrots, potatoes, beets and other root vegetables.

Hard-Boiled Egg Slices 

Banana Slices

                See all my Cooking Tips!

Letting Kids Control Your Menu

Stuff Your Own Tortillas (photo by Andy Mills)

When I was growing up in Western Pennsylvania, I had almost no say in what the family ate for dinner.  My mother cooked it and served it, and my father, brother and I choked it down.  On Monday nights, if Dad was out at his Kiwanis dinner meeting, my brother Steve and I begged for Chef Boyardee Spaghetti.  It came in a can, and the noodles were as soft as pudding. 

I’m sure my mother obliged us because all she had to do was get out the can opener, dump the spaghetti into a pot and turn on the gas.  We lapped it up and begged for more.  It was the best-tasting dinner we were likely to have in any given week.

Flash forward to Sunday dinner...

Are You More Adventurous in the Kitchen Than a Chimpanzee?

Couldn't-Be-Easier Avocado Appetizer

According to a recent study involving scientists from Harvard and Yale, chimpanzees could cook if only they knew how to work a stove.  That gives me hope that everyone can make a meal if they try. 

I do have proof of this concept.  Many years ago Bart agreed to trade places with me for a week.  I would sit at the typewriter and compose wonderful stories while he would care for our two toddlers and cook.