How to beat the recession by cooking with avocados--frozen desserts, cookies, or savory smoothies

May 28, 11:51 PMSacramento Nutrition ExaminerAnne Hart

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Beat the recession by eating home-made avocado ice cream, frozen dessert, cookies, or beer-batter fried or baked avocados. Buy the avocados on sale when they are very ripe and the supermarket wants to sell them quickly. Usually, the avocados will be reduced to five for five dollars.

Whisk mashed avocado into cookie dough or brownies instead of other liquid or milk. Mashed avocados may be substituted for any liquid, such as milk in cake or cookies. Then add your nutritious sweetener to the batter.

There are so many more ways to serve avocados and take advantages of the benefits of their Omega 9 fatty acids in avocado oil. If you're looking for a different way to serve salmon, try salmon salad stuffed into half an avocado. Whip mashed avocados into desserts such as ice cream, frozen yogurt, or puddings.

Or sweeten with apple juice concentrate and freeze the mashed avocados in a smoothie with other fruits. Another way to use avocados is to put the peeled avocado in a blender with spinach and celery and tomato juice or carrot juice. Drink the vegetable smoothie, which will be thick and delicious. You can spice the vegetable smoothie with your choice of savory seasonings.

Serve avocados with green leafy vegetables, such as spinach, kale, or arugula  in order to help your body absorb more of the nutrients such as lutein, from the green vegetables.

To make avocado ice cream or frozen yogurt, you can mash an avocado and whip it into the soft ice cream or yogurt, and freeze again. If more sweetener is needed, add a little honey.

Pine nuts, walnuts, or pistachios are optional. Add a quarter teaspoon of ground cinnamon, cloves, allspice, or the spice of your choice. Or follow my avocado frozen dessert recipe below.

As a vegetable, wild Alaskan no-salt added salmon, and fruit enthusiast, I spent weeks thinking up and testing additional ways to prepare vegetables such as avocados and fruits. My favorite way to serve salmon salad is to stuff the canned salmon mixed with a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil and a tablespoon of grape-seed oil mayonnaise, a quarter cup each of chopped celery, red bell peppers, and onions into two avocado halves. It takes five minutes to prepare and makes a great breakfast or lunch, especially for those who want some protein at each meal to keep insulin levels balanced.

It's the oil in the avocado that is needed by your body to better absorb the nutrients and antioxidants from the other vegetables. Now you can serve avocados as a dessert or as a main dish. Try cold avocado soup. Or slice avocados on top of omelettes.

Here's how to start with avocado vanilla frozen yogurt. Four a nourishing soup try avocado turkey soup, avocado shrimp soup, or avocado gazpacho cold tomato soup. Just slice the avocados into the soup just before serving, either hot or chilled soups.

Quick Avocado Frozen Dessert

2 ripe and peeled avocados, mashed
1 pint of nonfat vanilla frozen yogurt
1/2 cup shelled green pistachio nuts
1/4 cup slivered blanched almonds
1/4 cup shelled black walnuts
1/4 pignola nuts (pine nuts) fried in olive oil to a light brown hue
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup orange blossom honey

Fold yogurt into mashed avocados and puree in blender with 1/2 cup of skim milk or soy milk. Pour into storing and freezing bowl.

Add all the nuts and seeds. Re-freeze the yogurt mixture until firm. Drizzle honey on the top and add a festive green cookie or candy to decorate.
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Cold Avocado Soup Appetizer with Vermouth and Sherry

1 cup dry, light sherry
½ cup vermouth, dry
2 cans madrilène
1 avocado
1 cup non fat sour cream or nonfat plain yogurt
1 teaspoon grated onion
Pinch of chopped dill, and a dash of salt or salt-free herbs. Add pepper or turmeric to taste.

Put madrilène into a bowl. Put avocado through a sieve into madrilène. Blend in sour cream, add sherry, add vermouth, add salt and pepper and onion. Blend well and chill about 4 hours.' Pour over sliced natural, Muenster or Monterrey jack cheese cut into tiny cubes or strips at bottom of soup bowl. Garnish with dill and savory. Serves as a small cup each of appetizer for four people.

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Baked Avocado and Salmon with Gin

2 oz. of Gin
1 oz. of lemon juice
1 egg white
2 large avocados
3 tablespoons additional lemon juice
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, walnut oil, or grape seed oil
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup evaporated milk or goat milk
¼ teaspoon salt or herbal substitute
1 teaspoon thyme
1 cup salt-free boned and cooked or canned salmon, drained & flaked
(Note: Tuna or chicken or any flaked fish, meat, meat substitute, or poultry can be used.)
1 hard-cooked egg, chopped
4 tablespoons low-fat grape seed oil mayonnaise or mayonnaise substitute

Shake gin, lemon juice and egg white. Set aside. Cut avocados in half lengthwise. Remove pits, rub inside surfaces with lemon juice and set aside.

Stir gin mixture with flour and gradually add milk, stirring continually over low heat until sauce is smooth and thickened. Add seasonings, salmon, egg, and stir until well blended.

Heap salmon mixture in center of avocado halves and bake in 375 deg. F. oven for 15 minutes. Remove from oven. Cool and gradually add the olive or grape seed oil.

Top each with a ‘mayonnaise’ brand made with grape-seed oil or your home-made mayonnaise blended with ½ oz. of gin. Don’t used hydrogenated oils, trans-fats, lard, chicken fat, or butter when you can use oils that don’t clog your innards. But remember that it’s better to add the oil after you cook your dish and consume the oil cold rather than heat the oils while cooking.

Bake 5 minutes longer. Serves 4. Vodka, scotch, white wine, rose wine, vermouth, sherry, rum, or bourbon may be substituted for varying flavorings for each avocado prepared.

Also leftover martinis may be taken from the cocktail shaker and blended with the mayonnaise and baked in with the salmon. Never waste that great liquor! It imparts to meals a delicious aroma that whets the appetite. Tell people whether the liquors or wines you put in foods contain sulfites so those allergic to sulfites can refrain.

Remember always to use liquor responsibly in any food you serve because some of your guests could be allergic to those spirits or the sulfites in wines and other liquors. Please label the ingredients on the foods, especially if the liquor or wine you cooked or served with contains sulfites. This is important because they could cause serious asthma attacks and severe allergic reactions to people sensitive to sulfites.

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Champagne Sour Cream Sauce: Delicious served with baked avocado and salmon, or over lean veal and eggplant, or on veal parmigiana.

2cups champagne
1 pint sour cream
1 ripe mashed avocado, blended well with no lumps
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 cup lemon juice or lime juice
1 small package of soft cream cheese
1 pimiento chopped
Salt & pepper to taste

Blend the sour cream, mashed avocado and soft cream cheese into the onion and garlic powder. Add pimiento, lemon juice. Blend together. Gradually beat in the champagne, using enough to achieve a thick cream sauce consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste. Blend in enough champagne so that the sauce is thick and creamy and stands in peaks when beaten. Serve over any meal to highlight it and bring out the utmost flavor.

Note: By leaving out the avocado, salt and pepper and pimiento, and by adding 1/4 to 1/3 cup honey, champagne sour cream sauce may be used to spread on cake or heap on fresh fruit as a delightful champagne cream sauce. If you have remaining champagne left over, use in place of water in baking a cake or blend in with cooked food.

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Fried or Baked Beer-Battered Avocados

Beer Pancake Batter: Excellent for coating avocados, chicken, fish, cutlets, zucchini, squash, and other vegetables and chops or fruit that you plan to fry with a beer batter coating. Use as an alternative to breading or dipping in flour and egg and frying or baking.

1 cup dark, whole-grained flour
1 cup lukewarm beer
2 egg whites
Spices of your choice or lemon juice
Spices can be: pepper, thyme, rosemary, basil, oregano, cumin, curry powder, saffron, parsley flakes, onion powder, garlic powder, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger (with ginger beer), dill, etc. depending on what use you have for batter-fried chicken, pancakes, fried eggplant, zucchini, fish, or chops and stuffed vegetables.

Sift flour, beat lukewarm beer gradually into the sifted flour and (optional) spice. Whisk until frothy. Leave until required for use. The success of a good batter is in mixing cold air into a smoothly-blended batter. The mixture must be well beaten. Use batter to coat anything you want to fry or bake. To fry avocados, peel firm avocados and cut them in half. Remove the seed and dip the avocado halves into the beer batter. Fry a few minutes until golden brown on both sides.

Serve one avocado per person on a bed of fresh baby spinach with  soup and crunchy warm bread on the side. If you eat spinach with avocados at the same time, the avocados will help you absorb more lutein from the spinach than if you ate the spinach alone. The reason is that the Omega 9 oils in the avocado makes it possible for the lutein from the spinach to be absorbed.

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