All About Storing Avocados (plus other tips and recipes)

Well, it's been awhile...I hope you all enjoyed your holidays! I took a nice break and spent some time with family. We had a great time and ate some good food. Speaking of family, my sister and I like to argue about the best way to store avocados. She puts them in the fridge as soon as she brings them home (unripe). I am adamantly against that method and did some testing to prove her wrong. My favorite method is the first one listed below. Although I'd rather eat my avocados at room temp, sometimes this isn't possible so this method allows me to eat avocados everyday.

I love avocados. (Though I guess not as much as my niece who loves them so much she wants to "marry them!") Seven of my recipes use avocados and I'm sure there will be more. I would live in California just to have inexpensive avocados. Maybe even my own tree. Oh, how wonderful that would be. Now, I have to ration my avocados so I have enough. Those babies are expensive. When I catch a sale, dropping the price to $1 per avocado, I load up. Unfortunately this means that sometimes I just can't eat them fast enough. I mean I could, but that whole rationing thing still applies.

Making Mayo by Hand with Recipe for Coconut-Ghee Mayonnaise (plus tips for broken mayo)

The first time I made mayonnaise, it was a disaster. I tried to use the immersion blender method that so many others love. It didn't work for me. I'll never use an immersion blender again (for mayo). [Update: I finally purchased a Cuisinart immersion blender and it works beautifully for mayo!] So...after many, many months, I decided to try again. This time I wasn't going to take my chances with any blender method (my regular bender and food processor don't have the option to pour in the top so they won't work anyway), so I decided to pull out the big guns. My big guns, of course.

Hand-beaten mayonnaise.

Citrus-Herb Chicken Kabobs

While I don't have my own kids (yet), I'm always trying to make sure my nieces and nephews know that real food can be delicious (and not taste like lunch room food). Most of them are pretty adventurous and are willing to try the majority of the food I make or eat. They've tasted my roasted seaweed and kombucha. (They are now obsessed with seaweed. "Spicy" ginger kombucha, not so much.) They tasted and loved my kale chips and molten chocolate brownie. Some of the normal food stuff, like different types of chicken and fried zucchini coins, is a little harder to get them to try. It's new and weird. Chicken is usually a win but the zucchini coins needed to be very thin and crispy for those to be devoured.

Crispy Grain-Free Zucchini Coins with Roasted Red Pepper Dipping Sauce

This is not something I eat often. Maybe once year, at the end zucchini season. I eat a lot of zucchini during the summer, many different ways (like this pasta). Then every once in awhile, I fry it (or you can bake it). It's so good, but I make a huge mess when I make it. The breading mixture ends up everywhere. Everywhere. It's just one of those things. I can't help it. I used to make it with panko bread crumbs (something I really miss), but since I can't eat gluten anymore, I knew almond flour would be a great replacement. There is a crispiness you get from almond flour that you just can't get from coconut flour.

Roasted Red Pepper Dipping Sauce (GF, DF, Paleo, Whole30)

A simple dipping sauce made with roasted red peppers, garlic, onion, and spices. Try it with my Crispy Grain-free Zucchini Coins.


Roasted Red Pepper Dipping Sauce

makes about 1/2 cup

What you need:

1 red bell pepper, roasted (about 3/4 cup)
1/4 medium onion, diced (or 1/4 tsp onion powder)
1-2 cloves garlic (I use 2)
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
small handful fresh parsley
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 - 1/2 tsp salt (to taste)
pinch black pepper
2-4 tbsp chicken or vegetable broth (or water)
1/4 cup coconut milk (more to taste)

How to make:

To roast red peppers (make extra and freeze them), check out this tutorial with four different methods for roasting. (I roasted mine on the grill.) If you don't want to roast peppers, you can use jarred roasted red peppers. Process all ingredients, except for coconut milk, in a food processor until smooth. Heat over low heat and simmer gently for 5-10 minutes. After simmering, mix in coconut milk. Serve warm or cold (I serve it warm).

Alternatively, you can cook diced onions in a saucepan until soft and translucent. Then process all ingredients except for the broth until smooth. (If you use onion powder instead, just process all ingredients.) Serve warm or cold.

*For best taste, I recommend simmering the sauce.


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No Bake Mini Coconut Lemon Tarts plus berry versions (paleo, autoimmune, GAPS)

This recipe was created because of these Hail Merry Lemon Tarts. Have you heard of them? Seen them? I was in Earth Fare almost a month ago picking up a few things. While I was concentrating on picking out some greens...There. They. Were. In the produce section. Enticing me. Telling me to drop my kale and chard and eat a lemon tart. I can't turn down a lemon tart (or anything with lemon).

Homemade French Onion Dip, Copycat Heluva Good (with Dairy Free Option)

without gelatin (It does get a little thicker than this after refrigeration)

My sister has been slowly transitioning her family to real food. While she has been eating real food and following a mostly paleo diet for awhile now, her husband has been reluctant to give up certain foods that he loves. One of these things -- Heluva Good® French Onion Dip. I mean, I get it. It's good stuff. It is helluva good. Once I discovered the stuff (through my brother-in-law actually), I ate tubs of it.

But once you learn about real food, you realize just how much non-food ingredients are in our food. Like what's in Heluva Good French Onion Dip (MSG, soybean oil):

Brussels Sprouts Chips with Lemon Zest

Let me tell you about my week...wait, it is only Tuesday (as I write this), isn't it?

Well, it's been that kind of week. I'm starting to think it's the coffee. Yep, I'm drinking coffee again. And let me tell you, I am on edge all day long. Jittery and clumsy. Well, more clumsy than the usual. I'm used to tripping over my own feet, but I am causing all kinds of mishaps this week.

Cilantro-Lime Avocado Dip (Paleo, Autoimmune Protocol, Whole30)

This avocado dip is from my Salmon Cake post. See Salmon/Crab cake post here.

 I like to serve my crab cakes with some kind of sauce. I don't really like tartar sauce, so I wanted to make something like a remoulade or aioli. No mayo? No problem. Avocado saves the day again. Can you tell how much I looooove avocado? As for the cilantro, I love that too. And since I threw some seeds in the ground, not expecting much, my tiny garden is overflowing with cilantro.

Garlic & Herb Baked Chicken Wings

There's something called the Super Bowl coming up this weekend. Maybe you've heard of it. I think it involves football. But I most definitely know that it involves chicken wings.

Normally chicken wings are slathered in the good stuff like butter, hot sauce, and more butter. And we can't forget BBQ sauce. But if you've been reading this blog, you know I can't eat any of that deliciousness right now. But that's okay. There's more to wings than hot sauce and butter. Really, there is... You can enjoy chicken wings when you're doing the Whole30®, even on autoimmune protocol (and even if you're not, you can eat these too). Just leave out the butter. And all that other good stuff.

No-fuss Kale Chips in the Oven

While I said the next 30 days would be about my Whole30 (my last two posts are coming up soon), I did want to create this blog for a reason. One of those reasons is share my passion for enjoying real food, free of processed ingredients. One of the easiest, cheapest switches you can make is to eat kale chips instead of potato chips. If you've never had kale before, it might sound crazy. Just wait; you will soon be a believer. I’ve convince some devout potato chips eaters to try this, with success. Okay, so they still buy chips too. But they try them and even make the chips themselves. And that makes me happy. 

Speaking of, two of them just asked me for my kale chip recipe. One of them was tired of burnt kale and after I gave her my tips, she said her chips were “perfect.” The other…well, impatiently Googled it. She ate burnt chips. (I'm kidding.)

Kale chips with red and curly kale