Avocado and Almond Pound Cake with Pink Grapefruit and Strawberries

It took several tries for me to come up with an avocado pound cake that had the flavor and consistency I was looking for but I finally came up with something that is a keeper! I serve it with pink grapefruit, strawberries and mint and a little dallop of whipped cream.

Ingredients:

For the pound cake:

1/2 cup avocado-mashed
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. cream cheese
2 t. grapefruit zest
1 Tbls. almond paste
2 large eggs
1 t. vanilla
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 t. vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 t. salt
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda

For the fresh grapefruit and strawberries:

1 large pink grapefruit
1 cup fresh strawberries
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh mint
1 Tbsp. sugar

Instructions for the pound cake:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl of a mixer beat the avocado, butter, cream cheese, sugar, grapefruit zest, and almond paste until light and fluffy, scraping down sides as necessary. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until well combined. Add the buttermilk and beat on low until combined.

In a small bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir into the avocado mixture until combined.

Transfer to a greased loaf pan. Bake for 40-45 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and pan and cool. Allow to cool at least 2 hours.

For the pink grapefruit and strawberries:

Remove peel and pith from the pink grapefruit. Cut out segments from the membrane into a small bowl. Cut and quarter the fresh strawberries. Mix with mint and sugar.

Slice pound cake to desired thickness and serve with the grapefruit and strawberries and fresh whipped cream.

Avocado Alfredo with Garlic, Shrimp, Sun-dried Tomatoes, and Fresh Basil

I love cream sauce. I decided to try to lighten up the saturated fats a little by replacing some of the cream with avocado. I came up with this recipe.

Serves 2

3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup avocado (about 1 medium avocado)
4 cloves garlic-minced
1 Tbsp. butter
1 dash freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 lb. large shrimp-shells removed, deveined
2 Tbsp. julienned sun-dried tomatoes packed in olive oil
2 Tbsp. chiffonade of fresh basil
1/2 cup fresh tomato-chopped
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese, plus 2 Tbsp. for garnish
salt to taste
8 oz. dry fettuccine pasta

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook 8 to 10minutes until al dente; drain.

Once the water is started for the pasta begin making the sauce. In the bowl of a food processor puree the avocado and cream. Set aside.

In a medium size skillet over meium heat saute the garlic in the butter until garlic is soft, about 2 minutes. Add the shrimp, saute 1-2 minutes until no longer opaque. Remove and set aside. Add the avocado cream mixture and continue to cook until it begins to bubble around edges, 3 to 4 minutes. Return the shrimp to the pan and add the sun-dried tomatoes, and basil. Cook for an additional minute. Remove from heat and stir in the parmesan cheese and fresh tomatoes.

Divide the fettuccine on 2 plates. Pour equal amounts of sauce over fettuccine. Serve with additional parmesan cheese and freshly cracked pepper.

Avocado, White Chocolate, Cardamom Pots de Creme with Toasted Pistachios

My son and I love avocados. Much to my pleasure prices have been great lately for them (3 for $1.00!!!). So, we have been consuming them in great quantities and experimenting with them in ways ''outside of the guacamole''. I love Pots de Creme so I began to experiment with avocados and white chocolate and came up with this beautifully green recipe. I hope you enjoy it!

Serves 4

Ingredients:

For the Pots de Creme:

1/2 cup heavy cream
4-5 green cardamom pods
6 oz. white chocolate chips
3 egg yolks
dash salt
1/4 cup avocado-pureed (about 1/2 medium avocado)
2 Tbsp. toasted pistachios

In a medium sized bowl of a double boiler place the the heavy cream, cardamom pods, white chocolate chips and eggs yolks. Cook over medium heat stirring frequently with a whisk until temperture reaches 160 degrees on a candy thermometer. Turn off heat and whisk in the avocado. Stain through a sieve making sure to push all avocado through with the back of a spoon.

Transfer mixture to 4 ramekins. Chill at least 2 hours. Serve with toasted pistachios. Enjoy.

Too tired to bother

Well, I was about to enter a sweet potato contest. Here's the link: http://www.ncsweetpotatoes.com/bloggers-recipe-contest.html

I came up with a french toast recipe stuffed with sweet potato, raisens, and candied ginger and topped with toasted pecans. I made the recipe, it was good. I was going to tweak it a bit when I decided to google recipes for 'sweet potato french toast' to see if anyone else had created this recipe. Well, low and behold there is a recipe-it was from a previous winner to this recipe contest.

So, I've decided not to even enter. I'm too tired and the deadline is too soon.

Anyone out there who is entering recipe contests? Want to share stories?

Sunset magazine cheese recipe contest (I was not the winner :0)

I'd like to write about the latest contest that I entered that I was sure that I would win. I say this because I really thought that my odds were much better than the other contests I have entered.

Last months (February 2010) issue of Sunset magazine had an article on how to make your own cheese. Cool, I thought, I love trying new stuff that I've never done before. So, I ordered the rennet and the calcium choloride and followed the recipe. I made cheese! It worked. It was fun. Then, I saw that Sunset was having a recipe contest using the cheese from their cheese recipes. The categories were dessert and breakfast. I decided to enter. I entered a breakfast recipe. I created a lemon poppyseed crepe recipe with a lemon fromage blanc served with honey blueberries. I would give the recipe here but Sunset now has the rights to it, it was part of the entry criteria. My recipe tasted really good and I thought, finally, I might have a winner. I waited patiently for the the day that they would announce the winner. The winner would get tickets to the Petaluma cheese festival and be announced onstage.

The day came for the winner announcement. I went to make a phone call in the morning and I had no dial tone! Something was wrong with my phone! Oh nooooo, I thought. Sunset magazine will be trying to contact me. I called AT&T. I went throught the automated system and they wouldn't send someone out until Tuesday (it was a Sunday). I thought, well, they will e-mail me. My Internet service is throught AT&T and it was down. So, I called my sister and had her check my e-mail. Nothing. My phone eventually came back on, who knows why it went out for about four hours in the first place.

Days past and I checked Sunset.com each day to see the winner. A few days later they posted the winners (one for breakfast one for dessert). Needless to say, it wasn't me. I really thought that since it required making cheese that there would be few entries and I might win! According to Sunset.com, there were many (this made me feel slightly better).

I shall write more about my contest attempts...for now...I shall ponder my next contest!

Introduction

This is my first blog. I have no idea if anyone will read it but I thought that there must be other people out there that are trying to win recipe contests (actually, I know that there are a lot of them out there!!!). I love to cook and as of last summer (2009) I have entered several recipe contests. I am going to blog about the contests that I enter (and ones that I have entered before starting this blog). Eventually I hope to win one! Thus far I have won nada, zip, nothing, despite what I consider to be great attempts!
I have googled recipe contest winners and how to win recipe contests. I try to read the rules very carefully before entering. I have read of several people who won contests with their first entry. I am envious.
It is getting late, so I will end this introduction and say that my next blog will be about the next contest that I plan to enter and then I will be blogging about the contests that I have entered since last summer that I did not win...