Smashed Avocado with Pear and Walnuts.

You could argue that this is a very strange combination, which is a thought that I wouldn't necessarily disagree with, but sometimes the best surprises come from where we least expect them and all I'm going to say is that this is one tasty combination!

I was inspired by the absolutely adorable baby pears that have been in the supermarkets in Australia lately. If you've never seen a baby pear, then please take my word for it when I say they're so damn cute that you'll just want to buy some to have in your kitchen/house to look at and marvel about the cuteness. I know this because this happened to me. I was grocery shopping and I chanced upon the baby pears and next minute, I found myself in possession of some baby pears. But, I'm very passionate about not wasting food, so now that I had the baby pears in my fruit bowl, I had to make something with them. 

Enter a craving for some smashed avocado, a rummage through the pantry to see what was there and a pot on my balcony full of thyme that is verging on out on control and voila! That's how this mighty delicious toast came to be! 

While this is a remarkably uncomplicated recipe - I mean, it is toast after all - I thought I'd put it in words for two reasons; 1. It's very tasty and good things should be shared, and 2. I have a multitude of assignments I should be doing, so naturally I have chosen to do anything but those aforementioned assignments. You're welcome. 

Ingredients;

Some bread to make some toast. This is rather open ended, and you could use any type of bread you like, with my personal preference and recommendation being for some multigrain sourdough
*N.B. if you're gluten intolerant, obviously please use a gluten free bread*

1 ripe avocado

1 baby pear/small pear

Cracked black pepper

Fresh thyme leaves

Handful walnuts, roughly chopped

1. This is all very simple. Basically you put the bread in the toaster, and while that's doing it's thing, chop the avocado in half, scoop the flesh out into a bowl, mash it with a fork, crack a little pepper in there too, mix it around. 

2. When the toast is cooked, spread the avo over the top, and then thinly slice the pear, layer it over the top and sprinkle with the chopped walnuts, thyme leaves and some extra pepper for good measure.

3. Hmmmm YUMMMMMM. 

Chocolate and Almond Butter Nicecream.

If ever there were a match made in heaven, then it would undoubtedly be chocolate and almond butter. If you've not yet enjoyed the delight that is this combination, then your life needs an overhaul because quite frankly, you are missing out. And, if you have tried this choc/almond heavenly combination before, then you will know of its goodness already and hopefully understand what I mean when I say I'm addicted.

But there's a wee little problem in that chocolate and almond butter aren't exactly the quintessential 'health foods'. See, the way I came to discover this great and outstanding combination of foods was actually through some new vegan ice-cream stocked in my local supermarket. Whilst delicious, ice-cream, chocolate and almond butter weren't exactly the foods that I wanted to be eating too much of, regardless of how delicious they tasted. So, I set out to make them into foods that I could eat lots of which wasn't very difficult because of the joy that is nicecream. (N.B. not a typo, as my mother thought it was.)

Nicecream is basically frozen banana, that's blended up and like magic it turns into a creamy, ice-cream like substance, yet healthy, hence the name 'nice' cream. Banana is unique in that the naturally occurring and healthy sugars in the fruit turn creamy and delicious when blended. Conversely, other fruit is often ice-like and watery when its frozen and blended. Additionally, a lot of skeptics (i.e. my housemate) don't believe me when I say that when you take nice cream and add other flavours, it genuinely does not taste like banana. To be truthful, this semi freaks me out because obviously it's made from banana, but when you add chocolate and almond butter, IT LEGIT TASTES JUST LIKE CHOCOLATE AND ALMOND BUTTER - i.e. delicious and creamy and amazing, sans fruity banana taste. What a dream. Don't believe me? Well, that's cool - the less you eat, the more banana, chocolate and almond butter there is in the world for me to eat, although in the spirit of sharing good things, I would 17/10 recommend you try this.

Ingredients;

2 large bananas, peeled and frozen overnight
2 heaped tbsp raw cacao powder
2 tbsp pure maple syrup
2 tbsp pure almond butter
3/4 cup coconut/almond milk

1. Remove the bananas from the freezer and chop them up. Add them to the blender along with all the other ingredients and blend on high speed for several minutes. The longer you blend, the creamier the nice cream will be, so I recommend blending until its well combined (a few minutes + a few scrapes down of the sides of the blender/persistence) and then blend for another few minutes for optimum levels of creamy deliciousness.
2. Scoop out of the blender and serve - my suggestions for toppings are my Chocolate and Hazelnut Granola and fresh berries!