Avocado answers and recipes, plus GRAND Social No. 154 link party for grandparents

Avocado answers and recipes

Tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo which makes today a perfect day to learn a bit about avocados, the Cinco staple, as well as add a few avocado recipes to your Cinco de Mayo celebrations.

I have just the thing for you: A video from chef and Mexican-cooking guru Pati Jinich made exclusively for Grandma's Briefs. She answers my avocado questions and shares some pretty darn delicous sounding recipes.

Click the following graphic of Pati to go directly to that post. (Be prepared to drool.)

pati jinich

Be sure to...

Read More

Cinco de Mayo video exclusive: Chef Pati Jinich answers my avocado questions

Who loves avocados? I do, I do! Do you?

pati jinich on avocados

In celebration of Cinco de Mayo—the annual May 5 celebration of Mexican culture and heritage—chef Pati Jinich, cookbook author and host of the hit PBS series "Pati’s Mexican Table," offered to answer...

Read More

What I learned this week: Keeping the browns and the blues at bay

I love avocados. Jim hates avocados. So any avocados I buy are mine and mine alone to enjoy.

Because I usually only eat half an avocado at a time — in sandwiches, salads and so forth — the second half that I save for later often turns brown while sitting in the fridge waiting for me to nosh on it.

Not anymore.

This week I learned that if you lightly spray the cut avocado with cooking spray, it doesn't turn brown.

Seriously.

Pictorial proof is here:

The other day, I ate half an avocado on a sandwich at lunch time. I lightly sprayed the other half and stuck it in a baggie (bagging it loosely instead of having it touch the avocado flesh, just to see if the cooking spray really did work).

cut avocado 

Five hours later I pulled the avocado half from the fridge to slice up for a dinner salad. It looked like this once released from its bag:

how to keep avocado from turning brown 

See? I kept the browns at bay, thanks to cooking spray. Easy-peasy.

Keeping the blues at bay isn't as easy-peasy, I learned this week.

As many of you know, my sister has been hospitalized for more than two weeks now. Yesterday she was moved from ICU to a regular floor. There was even talk she might get to go home in a day or so.

Hooray!

Just a few hours after my sister called with the good news, I got another phone call, one informing me my sister was back in ICU. She'd suffered another coughing/bleeding/nearly heart-stopping episode and had been returned to the unit where they could care for her best.

The blues instantly set in for many of us.

If only cooking spray could keep the blues away from hearts and minds as well as it keeps the browns from avocados.

That is what I learned this week.

May your weekend be grand, your browns and blues easily cured... or avoided in the first place.

Today's question:

What did you learn this week?