Avocado Grilled with Goat Cheese--Easy and Delicious

There is always a right moment to share a good recipe and today's is one of my favorite.

This dish, with avocado in the main role, became one of my most popular dinner starters, when I have friends over. It is easy and can be prepared all year long as avocados are one of the most common vegetables, available in any season.

So I always have avocados in my kitchen since my whole family loves them. They are very nutritious; rich in healthy monounsaturated fats, proteins, as well as vitamins A, E, C, and B.

The only trick with avocados is to catch them at the right moment. I buy them still hard and let them ripen at home. It is said that if you put avocados among apples it speeds up the process. When they get to the right point of softness they can be refrigerated for a couple of days to preserve that perfect point.

In one of the French magazines a saw a recipe for a grilled avocado and goat cheese. Right away this combination seemed to me very interesting. I could imagine how a salted, well defined goat cheese can complement a rather mild and oily avocado. And the idea of grilling it seems very intriguing.

But instead serving it plain just with salad I also prepared a fresh tomato sauce to serve with the avocado and lighten a bit the whole dish. With a little bit of mache or arugula it became instantly a huge culinary hit among my guests. So today, I finally share this recipe.

Avocados Grilled with Goat Cheese
(Serves four>

Ingredients:
2 medium avocados (have at least extra one in case they are not perfectly greenish inside)
about 4 oz log (four 1/2-inch thick slices) of goat cheese,
2 medium tomatoes, blanched, peeled off, and chopped,
1 small shallot,
1 tbsp olive oil,
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar,
a few grape or cocktail tomatoes,
arugula or mache leaves to decorate,
2 tbsp chopped chives,
salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:
1. Cut avocados in half and remove gently the stone without destroying the flesh.
2. Place chopped tomatoes in a high wall container, add shallot, olive oil, and vinegar and, using a hand blender, make a smooth pure.
3. Prepare serving plates and divide the tomato sauce among the plates.
4. Preheat boiler to 400 F. Place avocados on a small baking form. On each half put a slice of goat cheese and put the form close to the broiler. Grill for about three minutes until the cheese melts and turns slightly gold.
5. Take the avocados from the oven and place on top of the tomato sauce. Season generously with salt and pepper, and sprinkle with chives. Decorate with grape tomato halves and salad leaves.
Serve with baguette.

Mexican Style Potato Salad with Avocado Salsa

Avocados are one of those fruits that, like grapes and bananas, I almost always have at home. Everyone in my family likes them, and since they are also very nutritious and healthy, why not always have them handy? Philip, my younger son likes them, as i call it, the American way, accompanied by cottage cheese with chopped chives on top. I like them plain with lime or lemon juice, cilantro and fresh tomatoes. Sometimes if they are about to go bad I chop them and add to arugula salad, sprinkle with walnuts or pumpkin seeds, lemon juice and walnut oil. An excellent salad to be served after any light dinner.

The only trick with avocados is to catch them at the right moment. I prefer to buy hard avocados and let them ripen at home than buy them soft, already touched by too many hands, and often blackish inside. When avocados reach the perfect soft state they can be stored for a couple of days in a refrigerator where they will not go bad too fast.

My new discovery has been this potato and avocado salad. It seemed a bit of a strange combination since both avocado and potatoes are mild in taste, but the addition of tomatoes and crispy pepper make this salad rather refreshing.

Potato Salad with Avocado Salsa
(Serves four)

Ingredients:
4 large potatoes, peeled off,
1 large ripe avocado,
1 yellow bell pepper,
1 medium onion, chopped,
4 medium tomatoes, sliced,
1 garlic clove, minced,
1 tbsp olive oil,
2 tsp lime or lemon juice,
3 tbsp chopped cilantro leaves,
1 green chili, if you like it spicy,
salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. Slice the potatoes and cook them for about 15 minutes, until tender. Drain them and let them cool down.
2. Prepare the salsa. Cut the avocado in half, remove the pit. Place the avocado in a medium bowl. Using fork mash the flesh.
3. Add olive oil, chopped onion, lime juice, garlic, and chopped chili, if used. Mix well.

4. Slice the tomatoes and and cut the bell pepper into thin strips. Mix them together.
5. On a large serving plate arrange a layer of potatoes, follow with a layer of tomato and yellow bell pepper slices, Top with avocado salsa, chopped coriander, and season with salt and pepper.

Cold Tomatillos and Avocado Soup--A Green Gazpacho

After many rainy days we have suffered this month, suddenly we got caught in a very hot weather. With temperature above 90 F, it feels more like July than May. I have already prepared some recipes to post, but these hot days made me crave for a different food than I was planning to share, so I decided to make a cold soup to help myself cope with the heatwave and, by the same token, to start the summer cooking season.

There are many well known cold soups worldwide, and even in Poland, where summers are not typically Mediterranean, we have a couple of them with the leading cold beet and yogurt soup. It is absolutely my favorite--so very Polish and at the same time unique in the composition of vegetables and herbs used in it. My second favorite is the Spanish gazpacho, which I can also eat by gallons. Those wonderful, purely vegetarian soups not only help to chill, but also are very low in calories and healthy. Both are loved by my kids, who typically are not great vegetable eaters, so I am always very happy to make these soups as often as I can.

Being fascinated by food I look constantly for new and inspiring ideas. Recently, in a small Spanish booklet advertising pots, I found a recipe for tomatillos and avocado summer soup. It was a simple (two-ingredient) and a very exciting recipe. I could imagine how tangy tomatillos would complement the mild and delicate taste of avocados, and I have been curious to try this soup since winter. Finally, the right day came. I made it yesterday.

This soup is very original, even compared to other cold soups, not only because of the generous use of oil, but also because avocado makes it quite rich. If you are not familiar with tomatillos, you may be surprised how differently their taste than the regular red tomatoes. Because this soup is is more filling than a regular gazpacho, you can turn it into an interesting starter, for example at large outdoor party, by serving small amounts of it in petite glasses.

If you are a fan of cold soups please try this one and I do not think you will be disappointed.

Cold Tomatillos and Avocado Soup
Serves 6-8 people

Ingredients:
2 lb fresh tomatillos,
2 ripe Haas avocados,
1 large garlic clove,
1/2 cup olive oil,
1/4 cup vinegar, preferably Jerez, but any white vinegar (e.g., cider or rice) can be used,
1 tsp sugar,
salt and freshly ground pepper.

Preparation:
1. Peel off the tomatillos from their "papery" shells. Cut them in quarters and place in a food processor.
2. Peel the avocados, remove the stones, and add their flesh to the food processor.
3. Add garlic olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper, and run the processor until all the ingredients are pure and have the consistency of a cream soup.
4. Transfer the soup to a large container and chill for at least four hours before serving, but the soup would be even better on the next day.

Serve drizzled with olive oil on top.

Papaya Dressing--Healthy Hollywood Fashion

Papaya is a very nutritious fruit coming originally from Central America but it now can be bought in most supermarkets all over the world. I have been a great papaya aficionado for many years. Thai salads with green papaya are excellent but I mostly use ripe papayas to make fruit salads or something else.

Papaya has one third more Vitamin C and twice as much Potassium than you can find in orange juice and, on top of that, it is also a good source of Vitamins E, A, and K. No wonder papaya has many "believers" among Hollywood celebrities. It has been claimed that it irons out wrinkles and speeds up metabolism. It is considered to be so healthy that some stars stay just on a papaya only diet for days, or at least drink a papaya smoothie everyday as a first morning drink, mixed with tomatoes, strawberries, mango, or just water.

Until recently, I was eating papaya mostly for these healthy and rational reasons. I made some papaya-banana or papaya-mango smoothies with a squeeze of lime, and I tried to make various desserts including papaya, which I found tricky, because its delicate taste was not always easy to bring out.

Once, I ate at my friend's place a delicious dish made of baked papaya with grilled scallops and garlic. I will try to obtain his recipe and will post it in the future. But I think that this healthy fruit should be served fresh as much as possible, so all its nutrients remain intact and can benefit our body.

I have bought it today again not only for its nutritional values but also for its photogeneity. Looking at this interesting fruit, and its dark orange flesh, I was struck by an idea to make an exotic salad dressing from it. I thought that adding vinegar would make it taste stronger. I think it worked pretty well and I enjoyed how it made many simple dishes taste more interesting and mysterious.

I have made a big  jar of it and used for many purposes. Papaya stores pretty well in a refrigerator but a dressing made from it thickens next day and acquires a jelly-like consistence, so it is better to eat it the same day you make it. Here are some of my ideas.

Papaya dressing

Ingredients:
1 and 1/2 cup papaya cut into cubes,
1/2 cup of grape seed oil (which is more neutral in taste than olive oil),
1/4 cup of white balsamic vinegar or other good quality white vinegar,
1 shallot,
salt and pepper,
black cumin to decorate.

Preparation;
1. Peel off papaya and remove black seeds.
2. Cut the fruit in pieces and put about 1 and 1/2 cup of it in a blender.
3. Add chopped shallot, vinegar, and oil.
4. Season with salt and pepper,and blend into a smooth puree.
5. Use black cumin for decorating and to enhance the taste.

Spread this dressing on top of an avocado.

Serve on a delicate lettuce, such as Boston, Romaine hearts, or Iceberg.

Use as a dip for shrimps for a party snack (e.g., instead of the much heavier mayonnaise dressing or a spicy tomato dressing).