How to make an avocado rose

Oh hello there!

Welcome back to reality after the long weekend – and a lovely, sunny and (somewhat) warm Easter weekend here in Vancouver! I hope you had some fun celebrating, whether you got together with family, friends, or just had a laid back couple of days. Since my family is scattered across the globe it’s difficult to have a traditional Easter meal of any kind, but I did have the pleasure of seeing lots of friends, FaceTiming with the fam, and being outside which was awesome.

Speaking of family meals….. some of my most vivid childhood memories have to do with holiday celebrations and food. (I guess it’s no surprise that I started a blog on the subject!) For example, the year that I turned 9 was also the year my sister turned 6, my mum made us a cake in the shape of a 9 from my end of the table and a 6 from my sister’s end. Clever, right? We also had an annual Christmas time tradition of decorating gingerbread houses, where I think all involved followed a “one candy for the house, one for my mouth” protocol. Christmas baking is never a good time to sacrifice quality control. 😉

Outside of holiday and birthdays, another food-related memory was every-day meals. Our family of 4 usually ate dinner together at our dining room table, which I’m sure isn’t as commonly found in families these days as it was back then. What made these dinners memorable? It wasn’t usually the food itself (sorry mum and dad!) It was my sister, who on several occasions, took 2+ hours – yes, TWO – to eat all the food off of her plate. She’d play around with it, tell a story, take a bite, tell another story… and two hours later, we’d be sitting there getting restless – or in my case, falling asleep.

I on the other hand, have always been (possibly to a fault) a pretty speedy eater. But these days in my blogging pursuits, I’m definitely the one that would most likely delay a meal from being devoured within seconds. I don’t normally take food photos in restaurants anymore, but if something particularly gorgeous happens to come to the table, those who dine with me usually allow a few minutes for me to ‘do my thing’ before they dig in with their fingers, forks and spoons. And at home, there’s a whole lot of photographing and playing with food that happens before it gets eaten (unless I’m absolutely ravenous, in which case, ain’t nobody got time for that!)

These days I’m crushing hard on avocados – specifically avocados sliced and rolled up to look like flowers. I’ve been working on my avocado rose making skills, and after having gone through an entire bag of Costco avocados over the weekend, I think I’m finally getting good at it! To celebrate, I made you a video and a few fancy-looking avocado and radish-topped rice cakes.

First, the video (and if you’re reading this in your inbox, simply click here to come over and watch it):

Video not working? Watch on Youtube.

In case you’d like to try your hand at avocado roses, here are a few of my top tips:

• Use ripe, but not over-ripe avocados. You want them to be nice and flexible, but not mushy.
• After removing the skin, smooth the rounded side over with your finger to get smoother looking ‘flower petals’.
• Slice as thinly as you possibly can. We’re talking like 2-3mm here. A really sharp knife helps with this.
• When fanning out the slices into a curve, try to make the curve as long as possible in order to make it easy to roll up.
• If you’re letting the avocado sit for a while before serving, spritz it with a little bit of lemon or lime juice to prevent it from turning brown.

And now, that little non-recipe for you…

All I used to create these guys was a package of brown rice cakes, avocados, and Easter egg radishes. I couldn’t resist picking them up at Whole Foods because 1) their peppery crunchiness contrasts so well with the creamy, smooth texture of avocado, and 2) they’re pink and purple, which was highly appropriate considering yesterday was Easter.

Once you’ve stacked your rice cakes up, give them a little sprinkle of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. And if you really want to go nuts, you can make a triple-decker one like this…

…and if you can find a tidy way to eat that thing, then you officially win. 😉

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So tell me…

• What’s your favourite way to make avocado toast? (Yes I know my photos above are of rice cakes and not toast… I was trying to avoid a grocery run!)