Skip to main content

Very Veggie Pesach 2021: Avocado "Toast"

 Am I too late to be introducing this trendy food choice? It's a great breakfast, full of healthy fats that keep you satisfied all day along with many nutrients and more potassium than bananas! And like all fresh fruits (yes, avocado is a fruit), avocado is kosher for Passover. Toast, of course, is not, but you can easily spread the avocado on half a slice of matzah, and in fact it's easier to spread and eat that way than with a piece of toasted bread. And this is so easy to make that it hardly even counts as a recipe.

But as a vegetarian I have to be mindful: where's the protein? Fortunately, avocado is one of the few fruits that has a significant amount of protein: 3 or 4 grams of complete protein per avocado! But, always watching my protein, I added some chopped nuts to the mash. If you're not a nut eater, you could put a fried egg on top, a common topping for avocado toast.

This recipe makes two servings, which I know is a very small amount but you don't want to have leftovers because avocado goes brown very quickly! It's still edible when it's brown but it doesn't look very appetizing.

Ingredients

  • 1 ripe avocado
  • 1 tbsp lime juice
  • 1/4 to 1/2 cup ground or chopped nuts (whatever kind you like; I usually use ground walnuts)
  • 1 clove garlic, pressed
  • Pinch of salt to taste (optional)
  • 1 slice of matzah, split in half
  • 1 or 2 eggs (optional)
Kashrut Notes
  • Star-K's website confirms that fresh, unprocessed supermarket produce is not a Passover problem, which covers the avocado, garlic and lime juice if you squeeze your own from a lime
  • If you don't want to squeeze your own lime juice, RealLime juice (from the same company as RealLemon) is kosher for Passover without special certification
  • Eggs are kosher for Passover if purchased before the holiday begins
  • Iodized salt is not kosher for Passover, and almost all table salt you will find in the store is iodized. Star-K's Passover Guide says that non-iodized salts that do not contain dextrose or polysorbates may be used, but ideally you should try to find salt with Passover certification.
  • Nuts require Passover certification because of the way they are processed and the preservatives used. Oh Nuts! has an amazing selection of reliably kosher-for-Passover nuts!
  • I know it sounds silly to point this out, but some matzah products are NOT suitable for Passover! You will sometimes find not-for-Passover matzah products in the Passover aisle at grocery stores, either because a customer or staff member misshelved it. Watch out for this! Not-for-Passover matzah products are usually clearly marked Not For Passover, usually at the top right.
Preparation
  1. Slice the avocado in half, remove the pit and scoop the flesh out of the skin into a bowl. Mash the flesh just a little bit.
  2. Add the lime juice, nuts and garlic, stir to combine, and mash to your preferred degree of smoothness.
  3. Spread half of the mixture onto each half of the matzah
  4. If adding egg on top, fry or scramble it and put as much as you want on each half

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Did Moses know he was a Hebrew?

It seems to be a common notion, perpetuated by movies like Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments  and Disney's Prince of Egypt , that Moses grew up as a high-level member of Pharaoh's household with no idea that he was a Hebrew. But does that notion fit in with what it says in the Bible, or what Jewish tradition teaches about Moses? This week's Torah portion is Shemot, the beginning of the book of Exodus, so it's a good time to examine this question. We actually know very little about Moses' childhood from the Bible. Pharaoh had ordered all male children to be thrown into the Nile River at birth (Ex. 1:22). While that order was in effect, a boy was born to a man of the tribe of Levi and his wife, also of that tribe (Ex. 2:1-2). The parents are later identified (Num. 26:59) as Amram an Yocheved (that "ch" is pronounced like a throat-clearing noise). Yocheved could not bear to throw her beautiful new son to his death, so she hid him away for three mont...
Read more

Being Jewish at Christmas

Last March, I heard a DJ talking about March Madness, the annual insanity surrounding a college basketball tournament. She wasn't interested in it, but everyone in her office was obsessed with it. They had an office pool, a constant barrage of emails and parties to watch every game on TV. The DJ didn't want to be a part of it, but her co-workers pressured her to get involved. They tried to get her to participate in the pool, but she insisted that she didn't even know the names of the teams. Her co-workers assured her that it didn't matter who she bet on, it would be fun to play. They wouldn't take no for an answer. She wasn't trying to spoil their fun, but she wanted to be left alone. As I heard her talk about her frustration, I thought, "Now you know how it feels to be Jewish at Christmas." Think of something that you're not interested in but that everybody else seems to be talking about. Maybe it's a sporting event: March Madness, the Superbo...
15 comments
Read more

A Very Veggie Pesach: Quinoa Stuffed Peppers; Quinoa Stuffed Cabbage

Quinoa is one of the best, most complete vegetarian sources of protein available.  It looks like a grain, but it's really a seed related to beets and spinach.  It has a mild nutty flavor and an interesting crunch. As I reported on my website , many widely-respected kosher certification organizations have indicated that quinoa (whole seeds, not processed) can be kosher for Passover.  See, e.g., Quinoa: The Grain That's Not (Star-K); Consumer Pesach Q and A (CRC, page 5 indicates that quinoa is not kitniyot, but can be used only if one is certain no forbidden grains are mixed in).  Nevertheless, there is some dispute about whether quinoa is forbidden, so you should check with your rabbi before using it.  See Curious about Kitniyot? (acknowledging that there are differences of opinion, OU does not recommend quinoa, but elsewhere says that if you use it you should inspect it carefully).  A food scientist with the Kashrut.com website has indicated that Anci...
3 comments
Read more