Pintesting in the Kitchen - Deconstructed Guacamole Salad

I love avocados, tomatoes, onions, and guacamole. So when I saw this pin for a deconstructed guacamole salad I was too excited. It seemed as if I just couldn't make it fast enough. Soon enough I had.

How was it? Kind of terrible :( I'm going to operate under the assumption this was my bad and that I made it incorrectly somehow. I guess I'll have to try it again.

Andouille Marinara Over Zucchini Noodles

While I waited for my results about my glucose test I needed to insure I was doing what was best for the little guy I was growing. The morning after my test I woke up feeling irritable and miserable - what one earth was I going to eat now!? It seemed like 90% of what was currently in my house was stuff I wasn't allowed to eat.

The last time I visited my parents my father gave me some andouille sausages - I can eat those. It seemed like I good jumping off point to create a dish. Zucchini pasta had sounded appetizing enough - alright then, how about andouille marinara sauce over zucchini pasta?

The andouille was frozen so I boiled it so I could have it ASAP.

While it boiled I got out my zucchini and washed them.

Cut the tops off.

Then I took my vegetable peeler, peeled off that outer green layer and set that aside to compost.

Peel slices of zucchini off until you hit seeds.

Seeds will mess with the groove of your "pasta."

Set the remaining zucchini aside to use for something else later.

By the time I was finished peeling the zucchini

 the andouille was ready.

My food processor wasn't clean so I got out my trusty blender.

Cut up the andouille and put it in the blender.

Get out your marinara sauce.

Add a bit on top of the andouille.

Blend until you've got something you're happy with. I knew I didn't want large chunks.

Set the sauce aside for now and get out a pan to cook your noodles. Add a bit of olive oil.

Turn on the heat.

Add your noodles and cook them for just a moment or two until they're warm or hot (whichever you want). In fact, you don't even have to heat the noodles - you can eat them as they are if you like.

Toss with a little sea salt, garlic, salt, garlic - whatever you like. I chose a little garlic salt.

 Once they were warm I put them on a plate, topped them with some sauce, and got out my fresh mozarella.

Slice off a few pieces of fresh mozarella and microwave just long enough to get it melty.

The resulting dish was really wonderful - even more so than I thought it could be.

I ate it pretty quickly and was still hungry so I whipped up a salad with baby spinach, tomato, avocado, chicken, and a teeny bit of dried cranberry. Then I topped the salad with oil and red wine vinegar.

Well, that's one evening down.

Pickled Red Cabbage

Who would have known that by making some pickled Vietnamese vegetables that I would have found myself bitten by the pickling bug? The only answer I can come up for this is, those of you who have or do pickle or can things knew it.

I did what I could to find a recipe that called for sea salt instead of kosher (because I ran out of kosher salt). I decided to settle on this one.

First, I mixed up the apple cider vinegar, sugar, sea salt (I told you I was out of kosher salt) and let it sit.

I cut my red cabbage in half

and washed it in a bowl once everything was cut how I wanted it.

I stuffed as much of the red cabbage as I dared into the jar I had available.

And poured the liquid over it.

I didn't shake it up every fifteen minutes on the dot or anything, I just periodically went into the kitchen and shook up the jar while I let it sit out on the counter. Here's what it looked like when I put it in the fridge for the night.

I had red cabbage left from the half that I'd cut up so I put it in a container to be used for a roasted red pepper and red cabbage salad for lunch during a planned play date for the next day.

For the moment I'm just waiting to crack into my pickled red cabbage.