Smashed Chickpea Guacamole Egg Salad

This recipe is from Kitchen Treaty. I really enjoyed this sandwich!  I chose to eat these open-face style on toasted brown bread, and added some spinach, tomato and cucumber.

A few notes:

• I mashed 2 avocados instead of 1 (make sure they are quite ripe - much easier to mash)
• I used 7 eggs and removed 3 or 4 yolks
• I increased the chickpeas to 1.5 cups (as I was mashing the chickpeas, the skins were coming off so I took about a minute to remove some of the bigger skin chunks, I'm not sure if this was necessary though…)
• I added half a jalepeno pepper, diced
• I used lime instead of lemon
• I excluded the mayonnaise
• The bread I used is Silver Hills "The Big 16".  One of my fav breads, I store it in the freezer as it can really dry out quickly before I get a chance to finish the loaf.

Alternatively, without the cucumber and tomato

Avocado Alfredo

I love pasta so when I came across this recipe at Gluten-Free-Vegan-Girl, I had to try it.  This recipe took just 15 minutes to prepare and it was delicious!

A few notes:

• I used whole wheat spaghetti
• I didn't have fresh basil so I used dried instead
• I excluded the nutritional yeast (one commenter asked about this and the author suggested a substitute could be onion powder - I will have to try this version next time)
• After reading more carefully through the comments on the author's site, the author also mentioned she sometimes includes other ingredients like spinach and chickpeas

Kale and Butternut Squash Salad

Here is a new salad I tried.  I was inspired by some super juicy dried apricots I bought and decided that they needed to go in a salad.

Kale and Butternut Squash Salad

Salad Ingredients:

• 1 butternut squash
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/3 cup sliced almonds, toasted
• 4 dried apricots, chopped
• 1/3 cup green onion, chopped
• 1/2 avocado, chopped
• 4 cups baby kale
• 1 tbsp chia seeds, optional

Dressing:

• 3 tbsp oil (or olive oil)
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1/2 tsp dry mustard
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cloves garlic, minced

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 375F. Peel and core butternut squash.  Cut into bite size cubes. Place squash in a bowl and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper.  Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Spread squash on baking sheet and bake for 35 min or until squash is tender.

2) Toast almonds in pan on medium heat until golden brown. No oil or butter necessary.  Just remember to stir occasionally or else the almonds will burn!

3) Combine ingredients for dressing and whisk.

4) Prepare rest of salad ingredients.

5) In a large bowl, lightly toss kale, apricots, green onion and avocado.  Drizzle dressing on salad a little bit at a time, toss to incorporate.  Divide salad onto plates.  Top with "just out of the oven" butternut squash and almonds (optional: chia seeds).

Serving size: 2-4