Friday, May 3, 2013

Tomato and Onion Salad Avocado Bites (gluten, dairy, nut free. Garlic free option. Vegan)

On a less depressing note than my last post (this week got to me hard.  Between the IEP meeting on Monday, my husband working out of town, the weather being less than ideal and the children and I being sicker than sick with colds this week, I just succumbing finally the last couple of days...it wasn't a lot of fun) I came up with this recipe this week.

See, some women eat guilty pleasure foods when their husbands are out of town or they eat Ramen noodles or something super easy (which I used to fall into that camp before realizing what eating like that was doing to my health).  Now a days, I find that when my husband goes out of town I end up eating vegetarian more.  Why?  I have no idea.  But, it leads to coming up with some cool recipes.  Like this one.

This would be a GREAT appetizer/first course if you are entertaining, or you could serve two of these bites to yourself as a salad for dinner like I did.  Either way, this salad is really yummy and really easy to make.

Tomato and Onion Salad Avocado Bites (gluten, dairy, nut, other things free.  Garlic free option. Vegan)
  • 1/2 a small onion, diced fine
  • 3 small tomatoes, seeded and diced (I used tomatoes on the vine for this)
  • 5 large leaves fresh basil, diced or torn fine (if you don't trust your knife to be sharp, tear)
  • 1 TBS extra virgin olive oil (approx.)
  • 1 Clove garlic, smashed, peeled and diced fine (can omit easily if allergic to garlic.  You can also dice up a little shallot and add to the mix instead)
  • 2 medium to large avocados
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 lemon
Mix onion, garlic, tomato, basil and drizzle with olive oil until well coated.  Let sit about 10 to 15 minutes to marinate and let the flavors blend together.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Cut avocados in half and remove seed, but do not remove avocado from outer peel.  Cut lemon in  half and squeeze a little lemon juice on exposed avocado to stop browning of avocado from occurring.  Take any remaining lemon juice and add it to the tomato mixture and mix well.

Spoon tomato mixture into the middle of each avocado half making a cute little "natural salad bowl".  Serve avocados with a spoon so people can scoop through the avocado into the salad and enjoy all the deliciousness!

Makes 4 avocado bites, which will serve four as a side dish or two as a main dish (depending on preference).
Enjoy!

3 comments:

sarah berry said...

This sounds delicious! I think I'd make it with cilantro instead of basil, but it would be good either way! I hope you and the kiddos are feeling better soon!

Erika, "The Make Do Homemaker" said...

Yeah, honestly I probably would have used basil if I'd had it. Unfortunately for me, my cilantro had gone the way of Elvis in my fridge when I decided to concoct it *laugh*, so basil was used instead. Still turned out yummy though. Cilantro would be a great swap out for the basil.

We're feeling better around here except for the "battle of the seasonal eczema" has begun due to environmental allergies kicking in. Overall, though, I've just been busy (some of which projects I'll take some pictures of and post on the blog here). Take care and thanks for reading!

Erika, "The Make Do Homemaker" said...

I would have used cilantro is what I meant to say. Ugh, high heat and no sleep really doesn't help the brain much ;).