Quick, Easy and Delicious Avocado Pasta

What to do with a ripe avocado?

This is a question I'm sure many of us have answered in different ways. Avocado goes great in salads, sandwiches, dips, facials... and pasta. Yup, that's right. Is it strange at all that I've never thought about using avocado in pasta before? The creaminess of it is almost like alfredo; it's a wonderfully healthy way to replace a cream or butter based sauce.
Of course, me being me, obviously the simple process of selecting the correctly ripened fruit has to go wrong due to some stupid mistake on my part. I'd left an avocado out on the counter to ripen a few days ago, and was going to make use of it today, but accidentally mixed it up with several other not totally ripe avocadoes and had already cut into it before I realized my blunder.
Oops.

But since the damage was already done and the avocado wasn't too green, I went ahead anyways and used it to make this pasta, with fabulous results (the only drawback being that my sauce wasn't really creamy since the avocado wasn't soft enough.)
Let's just say I'll be making this dish again and again and again... etc.

RECIPE: (from ohsheglows.com)
*1 medium-sized avocado, pitted
*Juice of 1/2 a lemon and lemon zest (once again I demonstrate my prowess for blundering and I chucked the peel before I could grate off some zest, so I didn't add this. I'm sure it would've looked pretty, though.)
*2-3 cloves garlic (I used 2 and it was definitely strong, so I would recommend using 3 only if you really like garlic)
*1/2 teaspoon salt
*2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
*2 servings/6 oz pasta of your choice; I used angelhair pasta
*Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

PREPERATION:
1.) Boil pasta, about 8-10 minutes
2.) While the pasta is boiling, make the sauce by putting the garlic, lemon juice, and olive oil in food processor
3.) Add in the avocado and salt
4.) When pasta is done, drain and add sauce on top

5.) Mix well and garnish with black pepper and lemon zest

My mother's birthday story

Yesterday it was my mother's birthday, so I concocted a birthday cake for her that turned into a one-way guilt trip to heaven.
You see, the story goes like this:

I started out making a simple dark chocolate cake from the Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake recipe on the back of the box.

When I took it out of the oven, I couldn't resist having the tiniest sample.
It tasted rich, delicious, chocolatey, and not too sweet. Bafflingly, however, it stuck to my well-greased pan though the cake itself wasn't burnt at all, and when I tried to get it out, it crumbled. How sad it was, that all my efforts for my wonderful mother's birthday cake were seemingly wasted, as I had no more time to bake another cake.

Not to fear; I wasn't born a professor's daughter for nothing! I quickly decided that the heavenly mountain of crumbled cake could still be decorated quite appealingly. After all, cake must not be wasted. So I drizzled it with the chocolate frosting I had previously prepared, and then iced it with dollops and swirls of vanilla buttercream icing. I then added some extra color and seasonal flavor with organic cranberries that happened to be on hand.

Voila! Disaster averted, and not to mention my dad's diet plans were ruined. 

We then went out for dinner in the city at Jax Cafe, which is famous for their pork chops and steak. However, since the lighting was too dim to do justice for their tender and juicy steak, I just quickly snapped a few pictures of our appetizers to commemorate the special evening as well as my adolescent immaturity.(I apologize for the grainy shots; couldn't fit a bulky camera into my purse so these were taken with my ipod.)



Check out my artistic skills as I attempt to give Simba a makeover




Bread basket! The raisin bread was really nice, a perfect balance of fresh, doughy, whole wheat bread and sweet dried fruit




Really nicely made fresh pita bread and different types of hummus dips.
The orange dip was definitely my fave, with what I swear was a note of cumin and a bit of spiciness from the paprika, as compared to the more generic and slightly salty regular hummus dip.

Moment later, as my famished family dug in...


...

Everyone in my family except for the (more prudent) me was full before the main course!

Tomato Basil soup. Very seasonal and fresh, but a bit too salty.

Quick random excerpt from today: After having an extra guilty helping of leftover cake this afternoon, I had a major sugar rush and was itching to play a game of tennis (too bad the season's over and there's no one to play with me right now anyways) but I went on a nice long jog/walk with my dog instead and spared my mom an hour of having to deal with a super jittery, sugar-hyped teenager. That's my good deed for the day.

Life worth living

I find fall such a romantic season, possibly because to "see something slowly be destroyed is to appreciate it's peak"- Anonymous.
The weather is perfect, and it's the one season where you can wear boots, sweaters, dresses, flip-flops, and straw hats without getting odd looks.
I'm generally not a very romantic person, and I often find romanticism (especially Shelley) a bit irritatingly hypocritic, but at the same time, in rare moments of self-reflection, I find that I rather enjoy romantic-era writing and style. To sit outside during the sunset with a cup of coffee, my ipod, and an enjoyable read, is one of those moments I savor.

The little things are what makes life what it is. Here are some things that make me happy right now:

Sunsets (or sunrises)

 



The Stewie doll I won (after losing about ten dollars to the machine) at a bowling alley



Chopin nocturne in E minor

 

 



Cute bear mug I found in a flea market

 

Basic canvas and leather backpack that goes with my fall aesthetic- rugged, feminine, minimalist

 

What is more romantic than two beautiful fools?