Summer Food Obsessions

I have recently started buying and eating more avocados than I have ever eaten in the previous 27 years of my life combined. It started out as an easy baby food for Avery a few months ago, and then became our first homemade guacamole. After that, we chopped avocado onto a spinach salad with strawberries and balsamic vinaigrette. But then I was kind of stuck. So we ate a lot of guacamole.

Then I saw a recipe online for an avocado key lime pie. I usually have a bag of limes sitting on my counter because I love squeezing a slice into a glass of water or adding fresh lime juice to chicken. And key lime pie is one of Ryan's favorite desserts (and it has been an embarrassingly-long time since I have made him one). So last week, Ryan had to work the evening shift in the pediatric ER, and I got to work on the pie after putting Avery to bed.

The avocado pureed with yogurt makes for a thick, creamy base, and gives the pie a beautiful green color without adding food coloring. The addition of the chopped almonds to the graham cracker crust was amazing. In the end, you taste a creamy, tangy lime pie that is secretly a little richer and healthier thanks to the avocado. This is a must-try recipe!

Thanks to that recipe, I have tried a variation on the avocado-yogurt combination for a couple other dishes. First, by adding a little chopped cilantro, garlic, and lime juice, we made a cool and tangy topping for sweet potato and black bean enchiladas. And we improved our guacamole recipe by adding Greek yogurt to the avocado.

But back to the enchiladas...I can't remember where I heard about this idea, but we added baked sweet potato (mashed) to refried beans, black beans, and salsa to make a delicious filling. Ryan and I both loved it, and Avery even enjoyed a few bites.

Sweet potatoes are definitely our other newest obsession. They are pretty inexpensive up here in NJ. It has literally been months since I've bought or eaten a white potato. We have made sweet potato hash browns (saute the potatoes with onions then add a little crumbled bacon and a dash of maple syrup just before serving). And a couple nights ago, I added caramelized onions, crumbled goat cheese, lime zest, and garlic powder to mashed sweet potatoes and stuffed jumbo pasta shells with the mixture.

So here's to a summer of new twists on old classic recipes and trying something different for dinner tonight!