I went back to researching fats and oils recently and came across an excellent chart for choosing the best oils for good health. But sadly, it omitted avocado oil, one of my favorites. So I did a little digging around to learn more about avocados.
Turns out avocado oil has many amazing qualities. First off, it has a fat profile almost identical to olive oil. As olive oil is generally considered one of the healthiest fats you can use, that means ditto for avocado oil. Check out all that avocados can do for you below.
While looking around, I found two interesting recipes featuring avocados and tweaked them both to my liking. The first one appears here. It’s my avocado and lime spread. It’s easy and can be made up to 4 or 5 days ahead. Store it in the fridge under plastic wrap pressed onto the surface to prevent exposure to air.
This salad is tastiest if you have pickled beets on hand. You can also use canned beets, though. And if you want to boil some beets to use, that’s also a possibility. But I like to use the juice from pickled or canned beets to make a beet-juice reduction for the salad dressing – so good!
I made this salad recently for Valentines Day and served it with preboiled lobster for a red-themed dinner – delicious! My salad recipe serves two, but you can easily double it.
Vinny’s grandparents have told him that living with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia is one of the scarier prospects of growing older. So he has decided to do a series of posts about some lifestyle choices that could make a positive difference to our mental health in later years. He’s all for starting these habits early, for a longer and more active life. Read on for his first installment.
Trillions of bacteria live happily in our gut. The goodies among them help us digest our food and absorb its nutrients. They also help our body make vitamins, absorb minerals, and get rid of toxins. They make our immune system strong. And best of all, they work on our brain cells to help them battle anxiety, stress, and depression. Friendly bugs in our gut make up the army that protects us from disease, including mental illness.
Good bacteria, called probiotics, come to us in fermented foods. Buttermilk, pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, sour dough bread, raw-milk cheeses and kefir all harbor the good guys. For many, though, probiotics march forth into our gut in yogurt. More
Remember those little Chia sculptures that blew onto the scene about 30 years ago? We’d water them and give them a little love, and they rewarded us by growing hair and fur in all the right places. They were cute but decidedly not edible. More
No added salt – just wild Canadian sardines and water.
More on the omega-3s…
Omega-3 fats are vital to the workings of our brain, the most important organ of our body. They keep our memories sharp and our minds on target. Sadly, the average North American diet is not a welcoming place for these guys. More
This recipe from Chef Mo captured my imagine. Then it seared into my soul!
Banana leaves
When a reader from Texas told me where to find purple yams here in Canada, I figured it wouldn’t be that hard to find banana leaves, either. Sure enough, a small store just 10 minutes away sold them.
Giant leaves in hand (these things are humongous), I set about getting dinner ready for guests coming to a birthday party.
The night before the big day, disaster struck. More
Walnuts slash diabetic risk by a quarter. Click pic for more.
Continuing with walnuts…
Walnuts raw (see Verse 4 in my previous post) not only develop the jaw, they also strengthen teeth as well as bones in your whole body.
Then too, walnuts help you remember things… like the make-ahead party salad in last week’s blog entry I promised to post. That’s because of the huge amounts of the rarer fat component omega-3 that walnuts have. More
Can you spot the walnut hiding among all these other tasty tree nuts?
Verse 4
Walnuts, raw
Develop the jaw,
But walnuts, stewed,
Are more quietly chewed.
—with a gentle nod to Ogden Nash
I’m nuts for walnuts…
I lied, when I promised I’d stop waxing poetic about nuts. I forgot about the walnut, one of nature’s treasures! Carrying on with my nutty soliloquy, I present verse 4.
Crunchy or pureed, if we’re smart, walnuts will be found hiding on our plates in everything from soup to salads! I’m so impressed with walnuts’ healthy benefits, I hardly know where to begin… perhaps with the letter A. More
“I don’t care about Christmas.” Eddy kicks the kitchen stool. “It won’t be the same, without Gramma.” Eddy’s heart feels frozen—it’s been that way ever since Gramma died.
Darren sighs. “Yeah, it’s been tough, buddy.” He kneels beside his brother so he can see right into Eddy’s eyes. “Remember Gramma’s Christmas cookies?” Darren asks. “Let’s make some Melting moments.”
Eddy thinks of Gramma’s laugh when he got flour on his nose. “OK… I guess,” he says and reaches for Gramma’s recipe box. More
Okra hits the target every time when it comes to keeping us regular. Also known as “lady finger,” okra’s nutritious green pod is rich in both soluble and insoluble fiber. This duo helps digest your dinner and moves food particles smoothly on their way through the gut. More
In a land neither near nor far, there lives a magical sweetener, named Stevia. It comes from a plant that is a cousin of Chrysanthemum and sister of Sunflower. But it is incredibly sweet. The truth is Stevia is 300 times sweeter than her ugly stepmother, Sugar. Better yet, Stevia is sweet without any added calories. And best of all, Stevia is so much kinder than any of her catty artificial friends, who promise the same calorie-free hit but deliver nothing but trouble. I’m referring of course to the chemical sweeteners Splenda, Aspartame, Saccharine, Sucralose, and Acesulfame.
Here’s a twist on a favorite recipe that has love written all over it… a heart-y breakfast to get the family into a peaceful mood for Christmas. It’s made with eggs, Vinny’s theme in recent posts.
Eggs often get a bad rap in the press. But they have lots going for them, More
Cook Up a Story 