I’m suffering from severe end-of-week burnout (shocker!), and so I have no thoughtful ramblings to contribute today. Really looking forward to trying some new recipes this weekend. Dinner last night was pedestrian in the extreme, random leftover vegetables (diced onion, yellow squash, a handful of kale) sautéed with half a jar of pasta sauce and plopped onto a pile of whole-wheat rotini. However, another box of rotini found its ultimate calling in my mom’s avocado-basil pasta salad (earmarked for brunch tomorrow, so I can’t eat it all tonight). There is a real recipe, but I sort of just wing it because all that really matters is how you want it to taste. Here it is, minus the bacon and grated cheese of the original:
16 oz. rotini pasta, or whatever shape you like (the original recipe was for 8 oz., but come on, that’s just not enough)
4 ripe avocados, diced (or, if you’re me, just smush them up in a bowl)
3-4 T. lemon juice
2 T. olive oil
6-8 cloves of garlic, diced/smashed/whatever
A whole bunch of fresh basil, chiffonaded all fancy-like. Like half a cup or more if you can swing it. (I never have that much, and it comes out fine.)
Salt and pepper
Are you ready for this? Really ready? Are you sure? Because this, my friends, requires high-octane kitchen prowess:
Put all that crap in a big bowl and mix it until it’s all mixed up. My large silicone spatula is perfect for the job, but you can use a wooden spoon or whatever you have. A toddler would probably be most helpful, but I don’t have any of those.
Then: try not to eat it all at once. Seriously, my mouth has never been so happy. It’s a divine combination of rich, silky avocado, al dente pasta, tangy lemon juice and garlic, and the extra kick of basil. If you want to mess with perfection, you can add fake bacon bits, but I did that once and they turned the pasta pink.
There’s no photo because it just looks like a bowl full of slimy, greenish pasta, which I realize does not sound appetizing in the least and is a major reason why I will never author my own cookbook. The other reasons are a profound lack of motivation and my aversion to using exact quantities, except when baking.
For your edification: in researching the noble avocado, I learned that its name comes from the Nahuatl word āhuacatl, which means testicle. In their flower phase, they can also switch sexes, opening as female in the morning and then reopening as male the next day. Kinky, kinky avocados.
16 oz. rotini pasta, or whatever shape you like (the original recipe was for 8 oz., but come on, that’s just not enough)
4 ripe avocados, diced (or, if you’re me, just smush them up in a bowl)
3-4 T. lemon juice
2 T. olive oil
6-8 cloves of garlic, diced/smashed/whatever
A whole bunch of fresh basil, chiffonaded all fancy-like. Like half a cup or more if you can swing it. (I never have that much, and it comes out fine.)
Salt and pepper
Are you ready for this? Really ready? Are you sure? Because this, my friends, requires high-octane kitchen prowess:
Put all that crap in a big bowl and mix it until it’s all mixed up. My large silicone spatula is perfect for the job, but you can use a wooden spoon or whatever you have. A toddler would probably be most helpful, but I don’t have any of those.
Then: try not to eat it all at once. Seriously, my mouth has never been so happy. It’s a divine combination of rich, silky avocado, al dente pasta, tangy lemon juice and garlic, and the extra kick of basil. If you want to mess with perfection, you can add fake bacon bits, but I did that once and they turned the pasta pink.
There’s no photo because it just looks like a bowl full of slimy, greenish pasta, which I realize does not sound appetizing in the least and is a major reason why I will never author my own cookbook. The other reasons are a profound lack of motivation and my aversion to using exact quantities, except when baking.
For your edification: in researching the noble avocado, I learned that its name comes from the Nahuatl word āhuacatl, which means testicle. In their flower phase, they can also switch sexes, opening as female in the morning and then reopening as male the next day. Kinky, kinky avocados.
Delicious avocado photo ripped from Raw Food Nation.
In heaven, avocados will always be perfectly ripe and never have rotten spots.
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