Effortless meal #1 – Egg, pesto & avocado salad sandwich

Posted by Almost Always Ravenous on September 14, 2010 · 7 Comments 

It’s quite easy to fall into the trap of ‘nothing good can be done quickly’, especially if you’re comparing with super complex & involved recipes with a million ingredients. If one had time who wouldn’t want to be eating that at home. Trying new things, mixing things around, keeping it simple are key to keeping the enthusiasm up for eating at home. Being a lazy person, trying to find quick ways of making food is always a plus (hopefully that doesn’t mean crappy, insipid food).

Anyways, just thought I’d share what I had for lunch today – extremely easy, very tasty, and a touch gourmet. 

Cooking time: 2min + boiling egg time 

Skill level: cooking for ‘dummies’. 

Ingredients: 

ingredients

• 1x egg
• ¼ of an avocado
• Pesto (I used: Traditional basil pesto, from Maria’s Pasta >> I got this from Taste of Melbourne; it was gorgeous)
• Salad
• Bread
• Optional : Lebanese cucumber, any other juicy/sweet veggies or even fruit
  

Method: 

1. Boil egg to your liking (cool down in bowl of cold water, so you can peel it). *hints* there’s some handy hints on making perfect eggs from one of Neil Perry’s books which I am intending to attach, but I think I might make an individual post on eggs – I’ll get to it when I can – aren’t I terrible…
2. Toast bread
3. Smear generous amount of pesto on bread
   

   pesto

4. Smear generous amount of avocado on bread (probably more like ½ of an avocado… yum). *hint* using a blunt round-tipped knife you can easily scrape a perfect “avocado spread” from a halved avocado. Gentle strokes along the surface will suffice. Please don’t try this on a ‘hard’ avocado (for obvious reasons).
   

   avacado

5. Thickly slice egg and spread on. I’m pretty crazy with knives – pretty much just hold the egg in palm of one hand and slice towards palm with knife. Please be sensible! =P
   

   sliced egg

6. Add salad & toast.
   

   salad

Bon apetite! See all you need is some nice pesto and nice bread, and you’re set for a quick gourmet lunch! 

final squished down product =)

Interesting facts: Pesto  

   

*basil leaves & pine nuts (*photos courtesy of wikipedia)

Background 

Derived from the Italian word pestâ (meaning “to pound or crush”), which literally makes reference to the sauce’s crushed herbs and garlic. The primary ingredients generally include basil, pine nuts, grated cheese, olive oil and garlic. Although technically speaking, pesto refers to basil based pesto (pesto alla genovese or pesto Genovese) that originate from Northern Italy, there are many alternative recipes which are highly regional. Mix and match with different nuts, herbs, sun-dried ingredients (eg. tomatoes), peppers and even leaf substitutions (eg. mint/ramson instead of basil), which all produce distinct taste differences. I’m personally a fan of the Italian basil based recipe as you may have noticed my intense like for Maria’s pasta’s pesto. =)  

Usage: Pasta / gnocchi, minestrone, pizza / brioche, toast / sandwiches… etc – almost anything really.  

How to make? See: Sarah Cooks, Best recipes, Jamie Oliver 

Tips: 

• use quality ingredients
• mix and match things you like (don’t need to stick rigidly with recipe)
• flavours are meant to be bruised out of the leaves, not chopped, hence pestle and mortar.

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Filed under Bendigo, Dummies guide =), Recipes