Saturday, May 26, 2012

What Do You Do With an Avocado?

Shopping for Food

I am an impulse buyer when I go food shopping. The other day, I bought some discount apples for the Boys, and then browsed the veggie department. I had carrots, onions, some mushrooms and salad greens at home, so the avocados, on sale, struck my fancy.

That night I had a nice tossed salad with avocado and tomato. Loved it, but I'd bought two avocados and the other was going to ripen soon. What to do?  Another salad? Guacamole?

How about....soup?  I looked up some recipes on the Internet, and sure enough, there were recipes for creamy avocado soup, some of which included the exact foods I already had at my disposal.

So I invented, as I always do. I will read a recipe and then modify it to suit me.

I did run down to the corner WaWa for some heavy cream--I could have used sour cream, but decided I try the regular instead. Then I browned mushrooms, onions, and celery in my soup pot, added some apricot brandy, salt, pepper, garlic, and Italian spices.

While that cooked, I put my ripe avocado and some cream in the blender and made a puree. By then the soup pot mix was about ready so I added a can of chicken broth, brought it all to a boil and then , scooping out the solids, put them in the blender to make another puree.  I added the two purees to the chicken broth with some more cream and a bit of flour to thicken it all, brought it to a light boil and voila! A really delicious soup resulted!

I just ate a nice bowlful and I think there is one more generous serving left for another day.

It was another "seat of the pants" cooking experiment that worked out. Every now and then, I have a failure, but more often than not, my inventions work out pretty well.

I suppose wise shoppers plan ahead and buy what they need to make fabulous meals. I do that occasionally, but it's much more fun to impulse buy and then get creative with the purchases.

Speaking of impulse, sweet corn was on sale yesterday at a pretty reasonable price for this time of year, so I bought eight ears--two for me and two for each of the Boys! They each got at ear with the husks on at late feed last night. Talk about spoiled.

To add to their feast, my hay man brought me second cutting bales this time as he'd run out of the first cutting. For anyone who knows hay, there is a considerable difference. First cutting tends to be coarser and consists of the top growth of the grasses. The second cutting is softer and more grassy.  It's more expensive by the bale but the horses really tend to clean up every blade.

My Boys do not need the richer hay, but it surely does make them happy.

All I could hear as I left the barn was the sound of very contented chewing,. *G*

4 comments:

  1. i'm starting cooking experiments with my new cooker - but not that adventurous, more along the lines of working out how the new one works!

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  2. Sounds like you've invented a delicious new recipe. I'm not that adventurous.

    The boys sound very contented too. I think we do spoil them a bit but they deserve it.

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  3. I frequently improvise in the kitchen, usually with good results. Tonight we had a lamb stir fry with veggies we had in the frig including spinach. For a sauce I mixed tamarind, honey, rice wine and cornstarch. It was delicious. With Gus around we won't have leftovers though.

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  4. I love avocados, and also impulse shop. Which is why I frequently end up with a bag full of the things when they're on sale! I'll definitely be trying that soup next time. Although, I confess that I find recipes terribly boring, so I'll probably end up improvising on your improvisation!

    I've still got first cutting here. The horses leave the coarser bits behind and I rake it up to use as mulch in the garden. Recycling!

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