CK and I are really enjoying our weekly Boston Organics deliveries. We even purchased a cooler to leave in the lobby for the nice delivery man to transfer our yummy fruits and veggies into for safe keeping until one of us wanders home from work.  I had to revive my lettuce a few too many times before I realized…oh duh…maybe this stuff needs a better home than a green plastic tote for eight hours.

So all in all it’s going very well.  Except for the avocados.  Over the last five weeks I’ve thrown out five avocados.  How horrible is that!  I feel guilty every time I have to toss the poor guys into the trash, but I just haven’t been able to think of a anything to do with them other than possibly make guacamole.  The thing is…I sort of hate guacamole and until Sunday morning I sort of disliked avocados.  I’d eat it if you put it in front of me, or you wrapped it up in sushi, but I’d never go out of my way to buy or use them.  But then CK shared a post on Google Reader about making Avocado Toast, and our friend Anna chimed in with a resounding email response of, “This is totes my favorite snack!!!!”  It appeared imminent that avocado and I would be forced to meet once again, and meet we did — spread on warm toast with a simple concoction of spices. It was a phenomenally good time!  From now on I promise that CK and I will be fighting over the avocados in our house and I vow to never throw one out ever again.

Avocado Toast (Based on Dani’s original recipe at Messy Cookin via Projectionist)
Makes 3 slices of delicious avocado topped bread

1 avocado
3 slices of bread (Note: I used Arnold Country White.  When I’m “bad” I’m very very bad).
Red Pepper Flakes
Sea Salt
Freshly Ground Black Pepper
Olive Oil

Toast the bread.  Slice the avocado in half, remove the flesh and place into a small bowl.  Mash the avocado with a fork and spread onto the toasted bread.

Sprinkle the toast with Red Pepper Flakes, salt and pepper, and drizzle lightly with olive oil.

My grandmother gave me a copy of Marjorie Standish’s Cooking Down East cookbook for Christmas. It’s full of simple New England style recipes including one of my absolute favorites, Shredded Wheat Bread. Whenever I’m home and my mother makes this I eat it like it’s going out of style and without fail she gets annoyed with me because I always toast freshly baked bread. Everyone has their “bad habits,” right?

I woke up early on Saturday morning determined that Shredded Wheat Bread was going to be the first item I mixed with my new Pink KitchenAid and after a quick conference with “Mummy Dearest” on the phone I began measuring ingredients. I’d only baked bread once before this attempt and it didn’t come out at all so I was very anxious to have this particular cooking experiment be a success. The KitchenAid mixer is officially amazing. I seriously stood in awe with my mouth wide open as 5 plus cups of flour were mixed into a gorgeous mass of dough. My arm would have literally fallen off before I ever stirred all of that in.

Making bread is time consuming. It rose for two hours, then had to be punched down, and given time to rise again. After that I shaped the dough into loaves and sat them on the counter until they doubled in size. I finally had my first slice of freshly baked bread around 2:00 pm in the afternoon, but it was so worth it and almost as good as my mom’s.

Secret Ingredients	Yeasty Beasties Activate
Whirl, Whirl, Whirl, Whirl	Allow to Rise (You Can Take a Nap)
Eureka!	Whack it Down and Divide in Half
Shape Into Loaves	Wait Until They Double in Size

Butter

Slice & Toast (If You Dare)