The authentic fajitas are always wrapped in flour tortillas.  Not this version :) This is a spontaneous change from the traditional chicken fajitas recipe – instead of using a flour tortilla I put the fajita filling in a whole-wheat pita pocket.

Ingredients:

Chicken breasts, 1 lb
2 bell peppers
Salsa, store-bought
1 large avocado
Cumin, 1 tsp
Chili Powder, 2 tsp
1 tbsp oil
4 whole-wheat pita pockets

Directions For Chicken Fajitas In A Pita Pocket:

Slice the chicken breasts.  Halve the peppers, scoop out the seeds and discard the seeds.  Slice the bell peppers.

Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan over high heat.  Add chicken and bell peppers, sprinkle with cumin and chili powder and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through (no longer pink in center when the thickest pieces are cut).  Remove from the frying pan.

Mash the avocado in a bowl with a fork.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Open the pita pocket and fill it with the chicken and peppers, salsa and mashed avocado.  Enjoy!

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I created this salad when I had avocado in my fridge, but was tired of guacamole :)

Salad Ingredients:

Tomatoes
Avocado
Cilantro
Olive Oil
Lime Juice

Directions For Making The Salad:

Chop the tomatoes.  Peel and chop the avocado.  Chop the cilantro.

Whisk together olive oil and lime juice (3 parts oil to 1 part juice) to make a salad dressing.

Mix tomatoes, avocado, cilantro and dressing.

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Here’s a picture of Trader Joe’s package of Mache (Lamb’s) Lettuce:

Ingredients For The Salad:

Mache (Lamb’s) Lettuce
Avocado
Balsamic Vinegar
Olive Oil

How To Make A Salad

Whisk together balsamic vinegar and olive oil to make a dressing (3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar).  In a bowl, toss the mache lettuce with the dressing.  Put the lettuce on a plate.

Peel and pit the avocado.  Thinly slice the avocado.  Put the avocado slices on top of the lettuce.

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Let’s peel an avocado and reveal the beautiful smooth tasting light-green avocado flesh inside!

Before you peel an avocado, make sure it is ripe – nobody wants to eat tough avocado that is not yet ready :)  Read this article about how to make sure an avocado is ripe.

Start with a whole ripe avocado:

Cut an avocado in half with a knife.

Take an avocado pit out with your fingers, and throw it out.

Take a spoon and put it between the avocado flesh and skin.  Keep moving the spoon around the perimeter of the avocado until the avocado flesh separates from the skin.  See the picture below for an illustration on how to separate avocado flesh from the avocado skin with a spoon:

Here’s the picture of avocado peel separated from avocado flesh:

Peel the second half of the avocado with a spoon.  Discard the avocado peel.

You are done peeling an avocado!

Now go ahead an make some guacamole!  Here’s a  very easy guacamole recipe.

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When the avocado is ripe and ready for eating, the skin peels away from the flesh very easily, and the inside of the avocado is soft and mashes easily with a fork.  Ripe avocado is full of flavor – it tastes smooth and buttery.  An avocado that is not yet ripe is tough and tasteless.

If you peel the avocado that is not yet ripe, there is no going back – you’ll have to eat it as is :)  Therefore, before you peel an avocado, always make sure that this avocado is ripe!  If the avocado is not ripe, just leave it on the counter – it will be ready to eat in a few days.

On the other hand, you certainly don’t want an avocado that is overly ripe (a.k.a spoiled)!  While the unripe avocados can be eaten after several days, a spoiled avocado goes straight to the garbage can :)

Here’s how to tell if an avocado is ripe:

Step 1: Analyze How An Avocado Looks

The avocado skin should be uniform – without dents and bruises.  The most common variety of avocado – Haas avocado – has a dark green skin with a black tint when ripe (like on the avocado picture below).   When the Haas avocado is not ripe, it is bright green (like the leaves on a tree).

However, don’t judge the avocado simply based on its color as other varieties of avocadoes can be bright green even when they are ripe.

Step 2: Analyze How An Avocado Feels

Gently squeeze an avocado with your fingers.  When I say “gently”, I mean it – don’t squeeze it so hard that the avocado gets smooshed :)  Put an avocado between your thumb and pointer fingers, and give it a very gentle squeeze on the sides.

You should be able to feel the avocado flesh give a little when you squeeze.

The avocado that is not ripe is hard like a rock.  The avocado that is spoiled is mushy and gives under your fingers way too much – spoiled avocado gets a permanent dent even from the gentlest squeeze.

After you feel enough avocadoes, you’ll know exactly what I mean.  Perfect avocado-picking skills come from experience :)

The bottom line:

Hard like a rock = unripe avocado
Permanently dented from a very gentle squeeze = spoiled avocado
Gives under your fingers, but doesn’t have a visible dent afterwards = perfectly ripe avocado

Once you picked a ripe avocado, go make some guacamole using this quick and easy guacamole recipe

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Chicken Fajitas Ingredients:

Cooked chicken meat
Onion
Avocado
Flour tortillas

Directions how to make chicken fajitas:

1. Thinly slice cooked chicken (I use the slicing blade of the food processor, so it only takes a few seconds to create very thin chicken slices).

Here’s the picture I took of sliced chicken breast for the fajitas:

2. Mash the avocado with a fork, and add salt to taste.

3. Thinly slice the onion (you can use the food processor again).

4. Warm the tortillas in the microwave

5. Assemble the chicken fajitas by putting chicken, onion and avocado in the tortilla.  Fold the tortilla and eat!

Also see: guacamole recipe

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This salad is filling enough to be a main dish!

Ingredients:

Cubed cooked turkey breast
Canned corn, drained
Avocado, cubed
Lettuce leaves
Oil
Vinegar

Directions:

Whisk oil and vinegar (3 parts oil, 2 parts vinegar) to make a dressing.

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients.  Toss with dressing to coat.

Note: you can also use cubed ham instead of turkey

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Ingredients:

Cooked White Rice
Crab Meat (imitation or real)
Cucumber, cut into long thin slices
Mashed Avocado
Nori (seaweed wrap, found in the ethnic isle)

Step 1:

Spread the rice on the nori.  Leave one end of the nori (1 inch strip) uncovered.  The layer of rice should be thin, so the nori shows through.  Put the avocado, cucumber and crab on the nori as illustrated on the picture below:

Step 2:

Moisten the uncovered strip of the nori with some water (just use your finger dipped in the water).  Roll into a tight roll.  Start rolling from the side that contains the filling (the opposite side to the uncovered strip).   The moistuned uncovered strip should act as a “tape” that holds the roll together.  Put the roll on the plate so the seam is on the bottom of the roll.

Step 3:

Cut the big roll into pieces.

Enjoy with some wasabi and ginger! :)

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This recipe is for true avocado lovers!

We want to enjoy the pure taste of avocado that we love so much!

No mixing it with lame fillers like tomatoes or onions – just the pure succulent taste of tender, buttery avocado!

Take 1 ripe avocado. Cut it in half, remove the pit, scoop out the flesh with a fork. Make sure the avocado is fresh and does not have any brown in it – spoiled avocado is a no-no for us, true avocado lovers!

Mash it with the fork, and sprinkle with some salt. Make sure to taste it before putting too much salt – we want the salt to bring out the taste of avocado, not overpower it.

That’s it! Avocado and salt – everything genious is simple. Enjoy!

You can just eat it with a big spoon… without anything else to interfere with your avocado-eating experience!

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