This weekend has been fairly short, given that I had to work Saturday morning, but I still managed to get some cooking done.

I’m still trying to go through what I have around the kitchen, and use up things that are close to going off, or just need using up.

So today, after a very wet and windy walk for a coffee with a friend, I headed back home and made a decision. But, before I went home I went via Eric Kayser to get some ciabatta bread.

I made some mushroom-tempeh “meatballs” last week, from The Colorful Kitchen cookbook, and needed to use them up too. Ilene has a meatball sub type sandwich in her cookbook which gave me an idea.

I heated the balls up in a frying pan, and slice the ciabatta in half. I grated some vegan cheese onto the ciabatta, and then stuck it on the pan to warm up. After the mushroom balls were heated through, I put them on top of the cheese and drizzled homemade barbecue sauce on them. It was the perfect lunch.

I’ve seen loads of recipes for pureed avocado used as a pasta sauce, but they usually added spinach or kale. I had neither of things, nor did I want to buy any as I know the spinach wouldn’t have been used before it wilted. I decided to try my own concoction, and see how it went.

Needless to say, it went pretty well (otherwise I wouldn’t be posting it here)! The best thing with an avocado sauce is that you can literally just have anything in your pasta. I had some cherry tomatoes that I grilled in a grill pan, until they started to char, and tossed them in with the pasta and avocado sauce.

I’ll keep this short, as I’m getting up early tomorrow for a run. Less than two weeks until the Women’s Five, and I’m not 5k ready yet.

Ingredients

1 ripe avocado
2 cloves garlic
1 spring onion, chopped
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon pine nuts
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
salt and pepper

1. Put all ingredients into a food processor, and whiz until smooth. Season to taste and whiz again.
2. Toss with cooked pasta, and veggies of choice.

Easy peasy!