The Cooking Project Celebrate wholesome, delicious, and beautiful food found everywhere around the world.

by Anna Reeser

I recently received a request for a post about avocados, so here it is. I love avocados deeply, and buy them as part of my weekly sandwich ingredients regimen. But apart from squishing avocado on bread to make lunch more succulent, I’ve discovered many interesting ways to use this buttery  fruit. Here are a few, and feel free to send in your own ideas!

1. Grilled Guacamole

I got the idea from Mark Bittman: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/dining/30mini.html?scp=2&sq=grilling&st=cse. Normal guacamole is amazing as is, but it becomes ten times better when the ingredients are separately grilled. I made this on the 4th of July. A few days later, I was at a party down the street and when I introduced myself to someone they said “Oh, you’re the one who made grilled guacamole at the barbecue?” Yes. I guess word had spread. Anyway, it’s definitely worth trying. When the grill is hot, place rounds of sliced red onion on the grill. Cut your avocados in half and remove the pits. Gently rest them meat-side down on the grill and cover for 1-2 minutes. Carefully lift them with tongs. You should see slight grill marks and the meat will turn bright green. Scoop the hot, smoky avo into a bowl. Remove onions from grill when they are beginning to crisp. Chop onions, some fresh cilantro, and garlic. Stir into bowl. Add a few spoonfuls of your choice of salsa. Salt and pepper to taste, then serve immediately with chips. It will be gone in minutes.

2. Completo Italiano

When I visited CJ in Chile last summer, I learned about the Completo Italiano. Chileans are generally fans of avocado (palta), so it appears on most food including hot dogs. The Completo Italiano gets its name because the stripes of mashed green palta, red ketchup, and white mayonaise that cover the hot dog represent the colors of the Italian flag. The condiments are then topped with a liberal shake of salt. This was definitely a highlight of the Chilean street food scene, and a simple recipe that can be appropriated at home.

3. The Salad that Never Fails

This salad uses avocado as just one of its many ingredients, but it becomes essential in creating the creamy taste. This salad recipe is a variation of the salad my parents usually make. It’s really simple. For the veggies, use washed, torn red leaf lettuce. Slice some small tomatoes, red bell pepper, and cucumber. Add sliced avocado (I like to halve and pit them, make lengthwise slices in the meat with a knife, then scoop them out with a spoon). For the dressing, combine equal parts olive oil and rice vinegar with a splash of balsamic vinegar. Add a mashed clove of garlic, a splash of worchestershire sauce, a large pinch of grated parmesan cheese, a large pinch of dill (fresh or dried), then salt and pepper to taste. Lemon and fresh basil are good additions too. Mix by shaking in a jar with a lid.  Keep tasting and adjusting till it’s salty, tart and flavorful. Toss the salad with dressing, some toasted walnuts, and dried cranberries. Sprinkle with grated parmesan, and serve.

by Anna Reeser

Ever since I was old enough to want unconventional things to say, I’ve been claiming okra as my favorite vegetable. I have also been citing my octopus bite as my most interesting scar story since the day it happened when I was ten. (Ask me about that sometime). Just like the octopus bite, which always brings in a string of questions, people are usually curious about what okra is and why I would prefer it to obvious green edibles like green beans and zucchini and asparagus.

Essentially okra looks like a little pointed seed pod with a cap. It has a peach-like fur on the outside and nutty seeds and an odd slime on the inside. The plant originates in Africa, and comes from the mallow family along with species like cotton and cocoa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okra). Okra appears in Southern cuisine and Indian dishes, neither of which are part of my heritage. Yet, okra has always been a comfort food for me.

My dad has prepared stir-fried okra on occasion since I can remember. Often the bizarre pods came straight from our backyard garden. The flavor of cooked okra is difficult to describe. It is the taste of nuts and cast iron and green. And, oddly enough, the taste of home. I asked my dad (Dave Reeser, who designed and started this website) how he was introduced to okra. He told me, “I always loved Gumbo and wanted to make some but had a difficult time finding okra in the supermarkets. So we planted some one summer. It grew fast in the San Fernando Valley and soon there were many pods, but some had already become tough. The Gumbos were okay, but it was hot and we didn’t want soup that often. So, we looked for other recipes. About that time we got Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian cookbook with the okra on the cover and tried some of the dishes. The mushy ones didn’t appeal at the time but the sliced and fried hot one did. So, I perfected my version:

Ingredients:
1 huge pile of sliced fresh tender okra
4 or 5 diced up small Japanese Peppers (they are hot and similar to a Serrano)
a  bunch of sliced scallions
some cut up Pole beans (green beans) about 1/4 the amount of the Okra

Method:
Fry the okra first for a while in the hot oil till almost brown add the other ingredients and brown, then add black pepper and salt.”

To fill in the story, my parents moved from LA to Ojai just before I was born, and were able to grow more okra in the warm climate there. My dad must have altered his original okra recipe over the years, making it milder to appeal to us children. One of my favorite recent okra stir-fries involved sweet red bell peppers and mustard seeds. When I moved to Berkeley, I was comforted to see okra in the daily spread of weird vegetables at the Berkeley Bowl market. I began making okra, urging my skeptical housemates to try the little cross sections of seed pod crisped in olive oil. Here is a recipe for the simple okra stir-fry I made this week. Now I’m excited to try my dad’s recipe with hot peppers and green beans.

Ingredients:
1 lb sliced fresh tender okra
1 red bell pepper
1/4 sliced sweet onion
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
a few sliced small carrots
salt & black pepper
hot pepper flakes
olive oil

Method:
Heat oil in a cast-iron pan until mustard seeds sizzle when dropped in. Add okra and onions. Cook until okra slime begins to cook off, then add peppers and carrot slices. Fry until well browned. then add black pepper, hot pepper flakes and salt.

Yield: depends on how much okra you can eat in one sitting. In my case, quite a bit.

by Anna Reeser

Lately I’ve been on a roll of making small, strange meals. I’ve also set out to prove that dill makes salads taste wonderful and distinctly like summer. I making this bizarre little lunch, I wanted something cold and crunchy to eat while sitting on the backyard couch in a patch of sun. I also wanted to use up a cucumber, a small tomato, half an avocado, and the rest of my greek yogurt, and highlight the dill and mint that are growing in the garden. And this is what happened:

Ingredients:

1/3 medium cucumber
1 small tomato, or a handful of cherry tomatoes
3 tablespoons plain greek yogurt
fresh & dried dill
fresh chopped mint
rice vinegar
olive oil
honey
salt & pepper
pistachios (almonds would work too)
1 slice whole wheat bread
1/2 avocado

Method:

1.    Slice the cucumber into small triangles. Slice tomato into small pieces (or cut cherry tomatoes in half)
2.    Mix thick greek yogurt with a drizzle of olive oil, splash of rice vinegar, and drizzle of honey until the consistency becomes thin enough to easily coat the cucumber and tomato pieces. Add salt, pepper, dill and mint.
3.    Add cucumber and tomato to the mixture, mix. Garnish with shelled pistacio nuts.
4.     Toast bread. When it turns golden, top with mashed avocado and a pinch of salt.

Yield: lunch for one

What’s your best one-pan meal? Send in recipes (using the Send a Recipe page) for an entire meal (breakfast, lunch or dinner) that is prepared in a single pan. We’ll follow all the recipes and choose a winner from the submissions we receive by August 1. The winner will be posted on the Fry Pan Challenge page.

Criteria:

– Originality

– Deliciousness

– Accessibility (meal should be fairly simple to make)