Shake That Dinner Rut: Avocado Style!

When the opportunity came up to join the El Paso Ambassador team for three months, I knew that it was a perfect fit for me. This family loves Mexican food in all forms, from tacos from store-bought kits to simple Southwest inspired salads. When we travel, Mike and I are always looking for authentic, amazing, hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurants to discover.

I think there is a preconceived notion for some people who think that Mexican food is always spicy, however, that is not always the case. Mexican food can be mild and food that has Southwest influences that you make at home can be as mild as you like!

For my first post I wanted to pay homage to a staple in our house, the avocado.

Avocados are eaten fresh out of the skin by both of my children using spoons to get every last morsel out, they are put on almost every salad that we eat and are enjoyed on burgers by young and old alike.

As a food blogger I hate to admit that I get stuck in a food rut, but I’m also human, a busy mom, a volunteer and have this website/online writing gigs as my job. I’ve always wondered how chefs can go home and cook anything for themselves or their families because some days after spending the entire day in the kitchen baking up, photographing and writing up a recipe for some great dessert, the last thing I feel like is making supper!

My fall back is whole wheat spaghetti with ground turkey and a nice organic sauce.  I feel a little better always having healthy ingredients in the spaghetti, but still, it’s always spaghetti when I don’t have time! The kids don’t complain, but Mike and I sure tire of it easily.

A trick I have learned to inspire myself – and this goes for recipe development as well- is to decide on one ingredient that I really want to use.

All my avocado recipes in this posts were created simply because I wanted to cook with avocados.

Avocado chicken (recipe soon!), salad, grilled avocado, the list goes on and on. When you start with a lesser ingredient in the dish rather than your main one I find that the inspiration comes faster and is far more interesting.

The first recipe that I adore is an appetizer but served with a grilled chicken breast makes a fabulous meal! Grilled avocado and pico de gallo, served with tortilla scoops on the side. This recipe proves that Mexican or Southwest inspired food does not have to be spicy! You can purchase mild pico de gallo almost everywhere you shop!

My favorite salad as a meal, Avocado, black bean and corn salad. Again, not spicy, just a lovely Southwest flavour.

Speaking of adding it to anything, I adore my avocado potato salad! What a unique twist on traditional avocado salad!

So what is your dinnertime fallback? Spaghetti seems to be a common one but I also admit that toasted tomato sandwiches with veggies places high on my list for easy, fast but healthy meals!

What’s your Mexican food fallback as well? Taco kits? I only wish I could remember how much we love tacos, I always seems to forget  that they are a great option to mix things up a bit! Leave your answers in the comment section below, I can’t wait to hear!

Love,

Karlynn

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Disclosure-I am participating in the Old El Paso Blogger Campaign by Mom Central Canada on behalf of General Mills, and received compensation as a thank you for participating and for sharing my honest opinion. The opinions on this blog are my own.