Let's All Eat Avocado Toast for Breakfast

Your new favorite breakfast. It's not the most photogenic thing you'll make in your kitchen but it is a delight for the senses. It looks so pretty in person.

The only reason that I'm including a recipe is so that you'll see how insanely easy/ delicious that it is. You will love it unless you're that one guy who tasted avocado for the first time ever and didn't like it but based on the nonsensicalness (totally a word) of the idea of not wanting to marry an avocado, I'm fairly certain that this was a YouTube hoax.

Ingredients:
2 slices whole grain bread
1/2 an avocado
teensy weensy little bitty sprinkle of salt

Method:
Toast bread.

While bread is toasting, slice your avocado. I like to slice it up in little bitty cross hatches so that when it comes to applying it to the toast, it's more like a spread.

Which leads us to spreading it onto the bread. Do that.

Sprinkle with the teensy weensy little bitty sprinkle of salt.

Fall in love.

And there you have your new favorite breakfast*. It is precisely sixteen times better than toast with butter--which just so happens to be my second favorite way to enjoy toast. And I really like toast.

XOXO
Libby

*In addition to breakfast, I also had this for lunch. Topped with a bunch of chopped up tomatoes and cilantro.

Try New Things

Last weekend, my friend Kellory invited me and a few other ladies to a design swap. It was a lot of fun but intimidating as I needed to google "design swap" and ended up at this article on Design*Sponge which made me feel really excited and also really flattered. I think Kellory has incredible taste and design is kind of Staci's thing. I've always had a style-crush on Kendra and Lisa, too (now you know), and so I felt pretty special to be invited amongst such creative ladies. It was fun to get together and hang out and do something different from what we're used to. All you have to do is bring a few things that you're tired of looking at, sit around and talk and "shop" and nom with your friends and then you get to come home with something new! It's perfect. I got some stuff I'm pretty pumped about.

I got this smoke glass bowl. Banana not included.

I got this piece of fabric that fits my little window perfectly.

 I got some other things but they just didn't photograph well. One day.

And of course we brought food. Kendra asked for my recipe for the Avocado Chicken Salad that came with me and so I guess this whole post is for her. I just kind of made it up as I went along and since I still had all of the stuff in my kitchen, I just re-made it so that I could remember what I did. Here you go, my friends.

 

The end result of this recipe is something akin to what might happen if a bowl of guacamole and a chicken salad sandwich made a love child. Lots of avocado, lots of cilantro, lots of happy feels. I used 1/2 a rotisserie chicken but I would imagine that if you didn't want to stand at your counter for fifteen minutes with two forks, shredding breasts and still wanted a very similar result, canned chicken or any leftovers you may have after grilling out would work just as well. Okay, so here we go:

 

Gather: 

2 T. chopped cilantro (or more if you love cilantro like I do)

2 cloves minced garlic

1/2 cup sour cream (greek yogurt would be an excellent substitute)

2 T. milk

Salt and pepper to taste

 

2 cups shredded chicken

1 avocado (diced)

1 roma tomato

1/2 red onion

lime juice

More cilantro for garnish

 

Assemble:

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine your sour cream, cilantro, garlic and salt and pepper, add milk to thin out the dressing. Add the chicken and stir it all up so that the chicken is completely coated. Cover the bowl in plastic wrap and set it in the fridge for at least 1/2 an hour or overnight if it's more convenient. You want the dressing to get kind of soaked up into the chicken.

When you're nearing serving time, dice your avocado, tomato and onion all about the same size and sprinkle with a good amount of lime juice. Stir it all up with the chicken and dressing and serve to your friends on sandwiches or wrapped in lettuce leaves. If it's a little dry, add in a little more milk or juice. There are tons of add-in's, too. I thought bacon would be delicious but I wasn't interested in adding to the fat content or firing up my stove, so it was left as-is and that was really good.

 

Of course if you take this to a picnic, keep it chilled so that no one gets food poisoning and dies because, seriously, who could live with that?

Have you ever been to a swap? Book swap, clothing swap, design swap?
Everyone has their thing, what weird stuff do you throw into chicken salad?

Farmer's Market Fare

I've never cooked a fresh green bean in my whole entire life.
Even now, I'm just guessing at it. Due to my choice to be in lack of sufficient internet connection in my home, I'm being forced to just use my own noggin.

I snapped all of the stemmy bits off of the beans because I've never seen stemmy bits in a can. I trusted this impulse on account of the fact that it made me feel very much like I should be sitting in my apron on a front porch with a mixing bowl betwixt my knees. I sliced the red onion and covered the two with a vegetable stock that I made last week and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Or until the onions lose their purple. I don't know exactly how scientific that is, though. Something tells me that it wouldn't take long.

My younger sister and I went to the Farmer's Market in McPherson on Saturday. I'd been lobbying to go to the Wichita one for several days but we decided to stay home. Honestly, I'm a tad embarrassed of my expectations. I went in anticipating disappointment. I expected to see a few ladies selling loaves of bread and cinnamon rolls and maybe a few vegetables here and there. What I saw, though, was a bounty! I went home with so much produce: sugar snap peas, new potatoes, Red Candy Apple onions, purple romaine, and two pounds of green beans. I only had to stay local to get the produce that my neighbors planted--and excellent produce at that. And every dollar that I spent went directly into the hand of the farmer who spent all that time pulling my potatoes out of the ground. Or, more accurately, every dollar went into the hand of the kid of the farmer. Those kids probably had a heavy hand in pulling onions, too, though--if they grew up anything like me. I remember sitting on the porch with my mom, topping strawberries and dumping them into huge freezer bags, staining our fingertips that brilliant fuchsia color. Or one time, splitting pea pods and shooting their contents into a metal bowl. It's really amazing the work you have to go to for the tiniest amount of peas.

Before I put the onion in with the beans, I took a huge bite of it. I was so excited by its name Red Candy Apple--I assure you, it was still very much an onion.

 The Farmer's Market, combined with a recent trip to my mother's herb garden, left me with all of the ingredients needed to make my first recipe from the June 2012 issue of Bon Appetit! So along with eating only fresh, neighbor-grown food, I'm taking care of 1/3 of my monthly goal. So, along with my green beans, I had New Potatoes with Dill Butter.

The recipe couldn't be simpler--begin with baby steps.

I can't wait to get back to the McPherson Farmer's Market, either. I have my source for fresh eggs, bread and tons of vegetables for the entire summer.

Is there an ingredient that you've never cooked with, before? I'm thinking about delving into the world of fresh beets, next week but I don't know if I've got it in me. Thoughts?

Things are Quiet Here and I'm Asking Your Opinion

If the story of my life reads like a book, this chapter begins thusly:
Once she realized that they really weren't coming back, she set about organizing the refrigerator.

I know that we'd been talking about it for months, now. Years even but it happened over the weekend: my brother and sister-in-law and their three beautiful kids moved away from me. I speak of this personally because, for crying out loud, this is my life and everyone in it is a supporting character, right? Okay, false. But if you don't watch yourself it can feel like that really easily.

Uncle Andrew with Amos and Penny on moving day

I'm just saying that a big chunk of my everyday life has been altered. No big deal, really. It happens a thousand times a day all over the world.

But when they were moving, I got 98% of the contents of their refrigerator (Andrew got the full jar of Claussen pickles--damn him!) and I just took everything up to my fridge and shoved it in. There are a LOT of condiments in my apartment, is what I'm saying. Three. Bottles. Of ketchup. I think we need to have friends over for a chicken nugget/ french fry bar to get rid of some of this stuff.

So when it was all said and done and I was sitting in a very quiet apartment, I just went into the kitchen and pulled everything out and then put it all back in. I took a "before" picture so that I could take an "after" photo but they looked so similar that it was kind of dumb to do that. Or mention... Derp.

My apartment is lacking in background noise for two reasons, one being that the apartment that once held five (not quiet) people is now completely void of human life (don't worry, it will be filled up again before the end of the month--today). The second being that the internet connection was in their name. So, since Saturday, my house has been a Facebook/ Spotify/ Pinterest/ Gmail free zone.

Let me tell you--I love it. I am loving it.

My time has become very intentional. Granted, I still have a kitchen full of dishes (though I did manage to take out the garbage and clean the litter box yesterday) but not doing the dishes was a choice that I made. I chose to watch movies rather than dishes instead of saying, "I really need to do the dishes but let me just check my email first" and then getting caught up in mindlessly clicking through a friend of a friend of a friend's wedding photos for 30 minutes before realizing that I'm still running water in the sink. I do that--all of the time. I am a terrible steward of our natural resources.

So, Ryan went ahead and set up internet in our house and is willing to give me the password but so far I haven't asked for it because I like this new little routine. I've been in the habit of waking up at 6:30 (sincere thanks to my noisy nieces and nephew for this) for about a year, now, so I spend my mornings reading, journaling, writing letters, mailing them (!), and listening to music that I own. I have listened to my Over The Rhine albums on repeat for hours and hours. I can't get enough of Willoughby or She or Suitcase. Every time those songs end, I just play them again. Now that I think of it, once you listen to those songs, it probably sounds like I'm going through a horrible break-up but I assure you that's not the case. I just think Karen's voice is so pretty and I have unreasonable fantasies that I can sing like her.

I've liked not sharing every single thought that comes into my brain via Facebook. I've liked having the time and energy and thought to write in my journal and keep my personal life kind of personal. It's a habit that I want to keep up, I think. I know it sounds ironic--writing a blog about not sharing so much on the internet, but I can be selective here. This is an exercise in self-control.

So, I brought my laptop to the coffee shop this morning at 6:45, ordered a large skim, coconut latte and started writing to you. I have a lot of ideas for my blog and I'm putting pen to physical paper about those.

I love to cook--we all know that. And I want to bring this blog around to that direction more. But I'm also a real cheapskate and so I tend to buy the same ingredients over and over again because I know what's inexpensive and I know what works but I need to branch out. I want to experiment with new ingredients and I want to take great photos. There are a few food blogs that I follow simply because the photographs are astounding. So, in the interest of branching out, I got a subscription to some new magazines, including Bon Appetit (ignore the fact that the only reason that I remember how to spell that because it basically says "ape-tit"--I am such an American) and I have a goal to make at least three recipes from each issue that comes out and I'll write about them. And I'll take pictures. And we'll all get better and better at what we like to do.

And my friends are just gonna have to be guinea pigs. Who wants to volunteer?

In fact--let me let you into the driver's seat: Here's the table of contents from the June issue of Bon Appetit magazine.

I'll make whatever you want. Go to that link, find something that sounds delicious and I'll make it for you (provided it's reasonable and I can get the ingredients in my very small, Midwestern town). The first person to respond with a reasonable request ("reasonable" will be determined by myself), gets dinner. Even better if you live locally--but if not, you at least get a shout out.

XOXO
Libby

Small Towns, Tiny Cobblers, and My Blog Crush

Fact: there is not one blogger that I feel like I can relate to more than Hilah.

A Pronto Pup stand comes to our little town once a year when we celebrate what is called "All Schools Day". I don't understand the purpose, point or history behind All Schools Day. All I know is that there's a parade, a Queen and King get crowned, I get a day off of work because it is considered a local holiday and there are Pronto Pups. Ten points to living in small towns!

Photographic evidence of the adorableness of my town.
Feat: my niece and sister-in-law with the Girl Scout float

But for the past three years that I've lived in McPherson, I have yet to have an opportunity to eat a Pronto Pup. Last year I was out of town, this year I was sick, and the first year I just didn't know any better. That first year, after realizing that there were Prontos to be had and that we'd missed out, Ryan and I went searching the internet for homemade corn dog recipes. We found Hilah and I think we've both had a sort of a crush on her ever since. I even thought about hooking her up with a friend of mine at one point until I realized that I have never met Hilah in person (only been weird over the internet) and also she lives in Texas. The very coolest part of Texas (according to the internet), but still. Texas.

I like Hilah because she cooks like I do. Throw a little of that in there, add some of this--or don't, your call, sing songs while you're mixing away. She knows what she's doing, though, and that's how we differ. She knows the names of things, and actual techniques. For the longest time I just said, "You know, like you're making cream gravy but with butter instead of sausage and before you blah blah blah..." but I was really talking about a béchamel. Thanks, Hilah.

Hands-down, though, the recipe that I use of hers is her peach cobbler. It is my favorite. I almost always have the ingredients on hand for when friends come over and I've never added or changed anything to her recipe (which is a rarity for me). 

Until this morning. I woke up bright and early at 6:00 am and I had it in my mind that I absolutely had to make this cobbler--but in muffin tins. Could it be done?

Yes. Yes it could.

Unfortunately this (supremely not-awesome) photograph is the only picture I could snap as the lighting is not great, today. It's a dark, overcast morning. But it's hot. You know the type. 

At any rate, my breakfast consisted of one of these little guys, a splash of milk, the rest of the strawberries, and a hard boiled egg.

I want you to go see Hilah's video, and so I won't give it to you in full here but I will link it to you. Though, I will tell you about the adaptations that I made.

The recipe says to put butter in your baking dish and put it in the oven to melt it. This is key. No, you can not substitute for oil spray--I've tried it. No, you have to use the butter. You don't have to eat it all but you do have to use butter.
So I buttered the insides of my muffin tins, filled the batter about 3/4 of the way up, and then dropped in little hunks of apricots and strawberries.

Mine baked for about 25 minutes. They probably could have used another five minutes just to brown them up a bit but I will tell you that these were fully cooked and, if you let them sit for just a little bit of time, hold their shape when you run a knife around and pop them out of their little spots.

I ate two and then ran the rest down to my sister-in-law so that I wouldn't eat what is, essentially, an entire cobbler. Serve these hot for desert and scoop a little bit of ice cream on top or throw some wheat germ in with the flour and justify your breakfast.

XOXO
-Libby

BLT's

I had Katie over for dinner, tonight. I'd been craving a BLT something fierce and once I realized that I had all of the ingredients for said sandwich at my home, it was decided.

I got so excited. I came home and started cooking bacon--slowly--over medium heat. Anything worth having is worth waiting for. And bacon is worth waiting for. I think that BLT's are one of the prettiest sandwiches in the animal kingdom and so I knew I wanted to photograph it and I wanted to blog all about it. Blog about the deliciousness of simple ingredients, the crunch of perfectly cooked bacon, the juice of a (mostly) seasonal tomato. Work was slow, so I pretty much thought about it exclusively for a good twenty minutes while I stared at the wall. I decided to borrow Ryan's camera, which is much more fancy than mine and take photos every step of the way.

But something happens when your friends come over and stand around you while you crisp bacon in a skillet and slice tomatoes and a multi-grain boule fresh from the bakery section of your local supermarket. You start talking and catching up and pouring drinks and learning that you either took a pivotal misstep in the Mint Julep recipe or you just really don't like them. And you laugh. And the bread gets sliced, mayonnaise gets spread, lettuce, bacon and tomatoes get piled up and promptly devoured and nary a photo gets taken. And that's alright.

Because you need to talk to your friend, anyway.

A Rare, Feminist Rant

 For the most part, I've been mostly transitioning over to fun, un-ranty things on this here blog. Lots of photos, lots of food, lots of how-to-do-stuff stuffs. And I do like that but there is always, will always be a chord in me that, when plucked, will send me singing until my voice is heard. And this is a lovely platform for singing. Except not singing. Mostly just ranting. I'm annoyed to say that it was an email forward that sent me into a tizzy. Usually, if I ever get an email with even one "FWD:" in the title, I'm hesitant to open it but if there's two, then it promptly gets deleted. But I started a new job, recently, and I get so few emails in a day that I decided to just open this one from a sixty-year-old co-worker (who, by the way, immediately after hitting "send", ran into my office and said "did you get my email!?"
Sub-rant: Nation, when you send someone an email, you don't have to, then, find a way to let that person know that there's an email waiting for them. I know there is because gmail gets this handy little (1) in my task bar and alerts me that there have been recent developments. This notification is sufficient. I do not need a visit, text message, Facebook alert or an old-fashioned telephone call to alert me of its presence. Do we understand?
 I gestured at the charts on my desk and asked if it's important. She said that it wasn't something I needed to get to right then, but I should check it out before I left for the day. So, while she watched, I opened up this email forward that read, "Neck Exercises For Women" featuring tons of exclamation marks and comic sans and blinky, probably virus-ridden icons that I mistakenly thought died with Myspace. Following were dozens of photos of hard-bodied, shirtless, greased up men--each photo flipped on its side so that you have to tilt your head to look at it properly (hence the "neck exercises", I presume).
She said, "So? Pretty funny, huh?"
Uncomfortably, I suuuuuper fake-laughed and said, "Have I been complaining about my aching neck that loudly?"
She hooted and laughed and went out to the other girls and said, "See, she wasn't offended!!"

Record Scratch

This was some kind of test to see what kinds of emails it's okay to forward to me? Wait! I want a do-over! DO OVERRRR!!! If I get to pick, I pick zero email forwards but I would choose "Obama is a Muslim" emails over naked-men any day! At least if you send me emails about how gays cause all the natural disasters, I know that you're just a crack-pot and I can dismiss you. But greased up hunks? If the genders were reversed, you can guarantee that women would be all up in arms. But since I'm staring at man nipples instead of lady nipples, it's hilarious! (?) I can not so easily dismiss the objectification of any person. 


Why do humans exist only to get into the pants of one another?

The Feminism of our great-grandmothers gave us political equality. The Feminism of our grandmothers gave us work-place equality. The Feminism of our mothers gave us the right to choose to stay at home or go to work (a war that's still being fought--mostly on the internet and amongst ourselves which only suits to distract us from current problems). And the Feminism of my generation is working damn hard for the reigns to their own reproductive and sexual rights. And this is awesome! This is wonderful and this makes me proud. It should make anyone proud because at the center of it all is not the idea that women want to be better than men or even that women want to be equal to men. It's that humans want to recognize the dignity in one another. No one ever started out higher than the other, so how did we get to this point?

It is gracious and kind and loving to make dinner for yourself and for your family and your community. It's gracious and kind and loving to go to work and provide a life for yourself and for your family and your community. Neither is not a chore or a duty or a job that needs to be passed off on anyone. Does a man not appreciate a clean coffee cup in the morning as much as a woman does? Is a woman not a skilled accountant? The idea that a man is doing the dishes in order to turn on his wife is still degrading. Do we not understand that? Why don't you just caption it, "Honey, even though this is where you belong, I'm going to climb down from my mighty throne and take care of it for you so that you can spend your time getting all excited about the sex you owe me." When did sex become the driving force in everything? Why can't people be kind for the sake of kindness. For the fact that sometimes life is difficult enough notwithstanding the dishes that need to be done.

But I guess the question is, how do we want to get our equality? Do we want to drag everyone down to a place where we're all barbarians who exist for our own pleaseure just so that we're all on an even playing field? Or can we start to look at every person as dignified, deserving, human beings and maybe find a way to pull each other out of the ditch?

That is all.
Thank you.
XOXO -Lib