Avocado Rolls; cooking v not cooking

I hate it when I lose my posts!

I had it all done, I hit ‘save’ and it disappeared.

It was time to make dinner so here I am, doing a repeat with my morning coffee.

Oh well…. Probably wasn’t interesting anyway. (I believe that’s referred to as ‘Sour Grapes Rationalization’ if I recall my Psych 101 class correctly… And, did you know that the French pronounce that ‘psike’ – with the ‘p’?)

More coffee….

This will be the first of two posts using phyllo. As there are 12 sheets in a box and I hate waste, I was playing with phyllo.

As I was playing with phyllo and not making anything else interesting, there will be more than one post on phyllo.

Got that?

Avocado Rolls

Total time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 sheets phyllo dough
• 1 avocado, sliced
• 3 shallots, sliced
• 3oz (90gr) feta, crumbled
• 1/3 cup Greek olives, chopped
• a handful of fresh chives, cut to fit roll
• a handful of fresh oregano, removed from stem but left whole
• 4 tsp olive oil

Instructions:

Sauté shallots in 2 tsp olive oil until tender and starting to brown.

Remove 1 sheet of pastry and re-wrap the rest. It’s important to keep filo covered at all times or it will dry out very quickly.

Lay the sheet out flat and lightly brush all over with olive oil.

Cut pastry in half the long way.

At the narrow end of one half divide and arrange 1/4 of the avocado, shallots, feta, olives and herbs.

Roll up like a cigar, tucking in sides as you roll.

Place on an oiled baking sheet and brush the top and sides with oil.

Repeat with the remaining phyllo sheets and filling, making 4 rolls in all

Bake at 400F (200C) for 15 – 20 minutes, until golden brown.

Remove, slice and serve.

I toyed with the idea of making a sauce for this, but the avocado got so very creamy when heated that I decided it really wasn’t necessary.

Had the weather been anything remotely like spring here, and my garden was doing anything other than lying dormant, I would have had a small spinach salad with it.

I refuse to buy greens this time of year when my garden should be producing with abandon.

I prefer to sit here and complain to anyone who will listen.

So there…. Pffffttttt!

The other day a comment came across my Twitter feed about getting great Chinese Take-Out.

I’ve never done that.

Not because I have anything against it, I would love it! I’ve just never lived in a place where it was an option.

I’ve never had pizza delivered either.

Okay, to be perfectly honest, there have been times, while traveling in the US and staying in a hotel/motel where we’ve had pizza delivered, but that doesn’t count.

When I hear people saying that they don’t have time to cook and only do it once or twice a week I always want to ask: ‘But, don’t you eat?’

Of course they eat… They just order in or pick it up.

What would you like darling? Chinese? Thai? Italian? Indian? Burgers? Hand me the phone, it’s my turn to ‘fix dinner’.

I can’t imagine.

The closest we get here is the pizza truck that parks in the village one evening a week in the summer.

When we first moved to Europe, before we learned the ropes, so to speak, we were constantly driving around in search of food.

If you’re on the motorway you can always get a sandwich at the service stations, but if you’re taking the scenic route it can be more of a challenge, especially for foot-loose Americans who don’t play by the rules.

I remember more than one day, driving around looking for something easy – a pizza or an omelet or a salad at, say, 1:45 in the afternoon and being turned away from cafes and restaurants because we were too late. Then looking for a simple sandwich shop, finding them all closed and ending up waiting for lunch service to be over so we could at least get some ice cream – which, naturally, isn’t available until later in the afternoon.

We learned. We now either pack a lunch or make certain to stop before noon at a bakery to buy a sandwich or plan on having a proper lunch at 1:00.

It’s changing here, too. More people are eating fast food and less people are having the proper 2 hour lunch and dinner every day. Plus, the busier areas are catering more to the tourists.

But it’s still how people think.

Grabbing a sandwich is the exception, not the rule and you have to be in an area where it’s possible. You can get a pizza or salad or sandwich any time of the day you like in Bordeaux or Paris, but not where we live.

One thing we do have are frozen food stores, where you can pop in on your way home from work and pick up a frozen entrée and plat principal (starter and main course) for dinner. Than you can at least pretend you cooked – you still have to heat and serve.

The closest one to us is 20 minutes away.

We cook.

Besides, our ‘Chinese’ is more ‘Vietnamese’ with a bit of French for flavor.

Sweet and Sour Frog Legs anyone?

Last Updated on May 31, 2013