Bundles of mash

Last night I had dinner with my girls, Ethel and Alene.

You’ve met them several times before.  Get to know them, because now that I’m back in So Cal, they’ll be making frequent appearances.  🙂

This was my contribution to dinner.  Pathetic.

I did provide the recipe…but not really since it was in fact forwarded to me by my sister from Whole Foods.

We kinda went rogue with the directions though…so here’s our adaptation.

Photos first, recipe at the end…

Arm workout #1 – avocado mashing

Arm workout #2 – black bean mashing

(source)

I used the above tool to make the beans look like something you’d find in a baby’s diaper.

I know.  The picture is less than appetizing…but I promise it only gets better from here.

Black bean avocado mash

• 2 whole avocados, mashed
• 2 cans of black beans, mashed
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 tbsp cumin
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• dash ‘o salt

While I was making the bean mash, Ethel was prepping the Mexican rice.

Mexican rice

• 1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
• EVOO
• 1/2 red onion, chopped
• 2 tomatoes, diced
• steamed white rice
• fresh cilantro, chopped
• salt (to taste)

First sauté garlic and red onion in EVOO, then add in tomatoes, and finally the white rice.  Leftover rice works best because it tends to be more dry and thus soaks up the flavors better.  At the very end add the cilantro.

And in true divide-and-conquer form, Alene was making herself busy with the pico de gallo and lettuce wraps.

Pico de gallo

• 2 tomatoes, diced
• handful of fresh cilantro, chopped
• dash ‘o lime juice
• splash ‘o red wine vinegar
• 2/3 jalapeno, minced as small as possible (or less)
• 1/2 red onion, chopped (it was a very small onion)
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• salt & pepper (to taste)

Romaine lettuce wraps

Leftover avo mash

All together now…

Feasting time!!

We all made the same mistake in overestimating how much our lettuce bundles could hold.  Naturally we remedied this by making more wraps ditching the lettuce (actually that was just Alene’s solution).  😉

No shame in stuffing things to the breaking point…story of my life (twss?).

Good food, good friends, not much to complain about.