Craving: Avocado Toasts with Pine Nuts

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I'm going to let you guys in on a little secret. I really enjoy savory foods. A lot. I would reach for bread and olive oil over a piece of cake the majority of the time. I blame my father. I inherited his salt fanatic gene. I even salt my chocolate ice cream. Seriously. Try it. It'll rock your world, especially if it's a really deep rich chocolate. Salted chocolate chip cookies? Heck yeah! But anyway, I digress. You can imagine my intense yearning when I saw this old post on The Kitchn this morning—Avocado Toast. It's so simple. A baguette, olive oil, avocado, salt and pepper.

I was literally dreaming about this all day yesterday. Luckily I had to go to the grocery after work. I came home with baguette and avocado in hand, ready to mash that green goodness to a pulp! However, I wanted to add a little twist. My only problem with avocado is how mushy it is and I don't do well with savory mushy foods. I need texture. I need crunch. The toast would help, but why not add some nuts? Pine nuts! Or, if you're fancy, pignolis (that's the Italian term). I had pine nuts in my freezer left over from a batch of pesto awhile ago and the flavor pairing was actually perfect. You know how pine nuts have specific flavor to them? I don't know how to describe it—is that umami at work? (Anyone know this??) You could try pecans (my first consideration) or Marcona almonds, too. In my ideal world, I would also add a sprinkling of chopped bacon, but that can be another day.

While The Kitchn classified them as breakfast, I think these make the perfect little appetizer, the perfect little snack if you're hosting a gathering. After all, slices of baguette aren't that big so it's just the right size. Are you ready for this? Here we go.

::: Avocado Toasts with Pine Nuts :::
Adapted from The Kitchn

Baguette slices, approx .5-.75 inch thick

Avocado
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Kosher or Sea Salt
Pepper
Pine Nuts (or nuts of your choosing)

Place the baguette slices on a baking sheet in the oven. I toasted mine at 350° for about 5-6 minutes. Check them after 3 minutes, flip them over, and toss the nuts on the baking sheet at this time. After those few minutes have passed, take the sheet out of the oven and drizzle the EVOO over the toast. I gave mine a good healthy covering. :-) Next, mash the avocado. There's no rule about how much you should put on the toasts so pile it up as much as you like! I generally think 1 TBSP can get you enough for 1-2 toast slices. Then sprinkle them liberally with big flakes of salt, pepper, and top with just a few nuts. Eat them while they're warm and you'll enjoy every second!

I made them later in the evening for my fiance. After he took his first bite he said "Yeah, these were worth dreaming about all day." See, I told you!

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Bread & Butter

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I have to admit, as much as I love the adorable cupcakes, chewy cookies, and other delectable sweets, I REALLY REALLY love bread. And salted butter. With the bread toasted, preferably. It's simple but SOOOO GOOD. Throw a glass of wine in there and I'm a happy camper. (Does the wine make me sound pretentious? It's most often Trader Joe's Charles Shaw, aka 2-Buck Chuck. There. Unpretentious.) This weekend I didn't have many obligations, so Sunday was a primo time to try baking something new. That led me to a recipe I found in ReadyMade Magazine for a simple baguette. Besides sounding delicious, it also sounded pretty easy.

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First off, THE POOLISH!!! That's pronounced "poo-LEESH," fyi. The poolish is a fermentation starter that (while sitting around for several hours) develops a complex flavor as well as a better texture for the bread dough. I could try to educate you and drone on and on, or I could just send you to the Wikipedia explanation. Or this one here from the blog Baking And Books. They'll explain it a lot better. The poolish for this recipe is one part water, one part flour (1 cup of each here), and one tbsp active dry yeast. What you're seeing above is right after the poolish has been sitting for 4.5 hours and I just added the salt.

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Next, after adding the remainder of flour, yeast, water, and salt, you let the dough sit and rise for an hour. That leaves you with a big giant blob of dough. After that first hour, you punch the dough w/ the heels of your hands to get rid of the gas/air the dough has collected. I was pretty psyched. The dough was big and puffy and I couldn't wait to punch that thing. However, silly me, I forgot that just maybe I should've floured my hand first... yeah, smooth move, ML. Brilliant.

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After letting the dough rise yet ANOTHER hour, you shape the dough into loaves and then BAKE AWAY! But first, I made sure to put a lovely egg wash on the loaves and coat those puppies in tasty sea salt and pink himalayan salt! Oh, salty bread, I'm drooling just at the thought.

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And here you have it! About 22 minutes/loaf later, you have crusty bread that's super soft on the inside. HELPFUL HINT: How can you tell when bread is done? It's not like you can poke this thing with a toothpick and "see if it comes out clean," you know what I'm saying? Turns out you can use a thermometer. The internal temp should be about 190°. You could also try some sort of old school method of turning the loaf upside down and hitting it and seeing if it makes a "thumping" sound but 1) that sounds archaic and I have a thermometer and 2) that might knock off my tasty salty topping so forget it. Trusty thermometer it is.

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Do I really need to convince you that the bread is delicious? I mean, look at it. It's a beautiful crusty baguette. Unless you hate on baguettes on a regular basis, this simple loaf will win you over, especially if you're a salt fiend like yours truly. And that salt on top? The crusty outside + the sea salt is similar to a soft pretzel, only better in my opinion!

Now, the recipe will give you 3-4 loaves. What do you do then? I opted for drenching some slices in dipping olive oil, toasting some and slathering them with Nutella, or my first aforementioned love, covering them in salted butter (after toasting them, of course!). I also brought a loaf and a half to work b/c let's face it. This little lady can't consume three loaves of white bread herself! Yikes! I imagine this would also be delicious in soup and it could make some killer appetizers (tomato, basil, mozzerella, DONE). So what do you think? Will you go for it? Are you going to bake some bread??? You know you want to... ;-)