Effortnesslessly: Avocado bites

If you love avocado as much as I do, you will adore this recipe! Perfectly paired with grapefruit, pine nuts and fresh thyme, it makes charming hors d'oeuvre, or delicious appetizer for your next party, or light gourmet breakfast sandwich.

Blog's Category: Hors D'oeuvre, Vegetarian, Perfect Breakfast

Intro

I've found this recipe on web net, modified it and ended up with adorable appetizer. Easy to make, it will be swept away by your guests first, I promise.

What is it?

It's a simple mix of cubed avocado, grapefruit, tiny leaves of fresh thyme, generously topped with pine nuts and piled on petite toasts.

Taste Description

There is no harsh spices in this recipe, so the taste overall is gentle and delicate. At the same time it's rich in distinct flavors of grapefruit, fresh thyme and pine nuts. Those flavors are harmoniously infused into the avocado pieces. Texture is awesome - buttery chunks of avocado, toothsome pine nuts, crunchy toast - ahhhh...

How to Serve/Store

Serve right away. It pairs great with a white wine or cocktail.

Actually, avocado mix can be prepared in advanced - it will keep in a fridge for several hours if you transfer it into glass container, smooth out a surface with a spoon to get rid of any air pockets, then lay plastic wrap right onto the avocado mix pressing wrap into the surface neatly. Cover tightly with a container lid. In this case there won't be air access and avocado won't darken (get oxidized).

Additional tips

- everyone in my house loves avocado, so, they are always lay on a top of my kitchen island. In a store, I pick a bag of the most green and visibly without dark spots, even, avocados. It assures me that I won't get avocado damaged by those careless buyers, who in a search of soft avocado press on it by their fingers, damaging tender fruit. BTW, may be that's me who is freak - I never press onto the produce to check on ripeness, I judge by look, only. I know how much labor put into the growing food and try to be respectful of it.

- take into the account that if you buy green avocados, you will be able to use them in 3-4 days so plan accordingly. In a 3-4 days they will be practically black, ready to be used with amazingly soft beautifully green and buttery flesh.

- to slow down ripening process, pop avocado in a fridge.

Avocado Bites with Grapefruit

For about ten small toasts:

2 ripe avocados

10 slices of cocktail bread or baguette

1 grapefruit

4-5 tbs thyme leaves

4 tbs pine nuts

salt, ground black pepper to taste

- Toasts the bread (baguette) pieces. Set aside and let it cool down.

- Cut grapefruit in half. Juice one half. For the other half, separate grapefruit sections from membranes and shred into small pieces.

- Peel avocado and dice it (see pictures below) into large bowl.

- Mix avocado, half of all amount of grapefruit juice, salt, pepper, thyme leaves and half of grapefruit pieces, reserving other half of grapefruit shreds for decoration. Stir well, taste and adjust grapefruit juice, salt and pepper if needed.

- Distribute avocado mix evenly onto your toasts, sprinkle with remaining grapefruit pieces and pine nuts and serve. Enjoy!

- I always cut avocado cutting it, first, in half. Then I remove stone by hitting it with a knife - knife stuck in a pit and then you can easily pull the pit out. After that I cut each avocado half in a half again thus quartering the avocado. At this point, I usually peel the skin (it's so easy!) and slice a quarter into thin slices for sandwich or dice avocado inside of skin (as on picture below) if I need it diced.

- Sometimes, in a periods of bad avocado craving attacks, I cut avocado in half, remove pit, splash inside a teaspoon of my favorite sauce or just soy sauce and spoon it out right into my mouth with a little bite of crusty bread - yummm.

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IN PICTURES