How to cut an avocado

By Elizabeth Prata

Happy Fourth of July, you guys!

If you happen to be making guacamole today, or just want a fresh avocado on top of your salad, here is how to cut one. You guys probably know this already, but I have three avocado pics waiting to be used, so, here goes!

Slice the avocado from north pole to south pole, all around. Press your knife into the flesh until it reaches the pit. If it's ripe, you can easily pry the two halves apart. You know it's ripe if the exterior is not a fresh green but brownish, and soft to the touch.

Pry the pit out of the half it's in.

Pick up one of the halves and with a sharp knife gently score it from side to side in even lines. Then score it from top to bottom in even lines. Do the same with the other half. The more lines you make the smaller the resulting chunks will be. Make sure you score it down to the skin, but oops, not so hard that the knife pokes through into your hand!

Take a teaspoon, or a tablespoon if the avocado is larger, and press it between the skin and the avocado flesh. Scoop as if you're scooping ice cream. Pry out the chunks.

And that's it! You now have even pieces of avocado to pop onto your sandwich or on your salad. If you're making guacamole, I like to make smaller chunks because they are easier to mash in the bowl with the fork.

Enjoy your holiday, whether avocado is featured in it or not. :)

But I hope it is ;)

Recipe review: Best Avocado Cauliflower Mash

My friend posted a recipe on Facebook. It looked really good so I thought I'd try it! It is a cauliflower patty with mashed avocado on top, with a fried egg on top of that. I like it for each of the three elements in the dish. However, the intent of the dish is that the cauliflower is supposed to be some kind of substitute for toast.

I've seen this trend elsewhere, for example, that the cauliflower is made into some kind of pizza crust. Blaring headlines on Facebook and Twitter proclaim, "You can't tell the difference!" Or, "Tastes super!" I've never believed these kind of headlines. It's illogical. Cauliflower is cauliflower, and toast is toast. Cauliflower is cauliflower, and pizza crust is pizza crust.

But I really like cauliflower. I usually roast it. I'm always looking for new ways to eat stuff so I thought I'd give the patty mash a try. Here are the results. The top three pics are mine and the bottom one is the recipe's For once, mine came out pretty close to the recipe! Bonus!

The recipe says to use a cheese grater to crumble the cauliflower. I have a mini food chopper so I used that. One or two pulses and the cauliflower was made very small. It all came together very quickly which is always a good thing. :)

The tagline for this recipe says,

You're going to want to replace all toast with this delicious, carb-free cauliflower version.

No. No you're not. But if you want a healthy and filling breakfast that comes together pretty quick, Best Avocado Cauliflower Mash is for you!