In search of breakfast bliss

I don’t know if breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but it’s certainly my favorite. You start with a clean slate. No need to try to redeem the nutritional deficiencies from meals eaten earlier in the day (neurotic health nuts think this way…) If you’re like me, you can tolerate a few more carbs earlier in the day. The possibilities are endless, and mostly easy to prepare. Oh, how I love breakfast! Can you tell?? And one of my favorite foods for breakfast is avocado toast.

If you’ve never had avocado toast, it’s pretty much just what it sounds like: toast with avocado on top. Sounds easy enough, right?  Well, it is. But I think I’ve perfected the nuances of said toast, so instead of keeping it a secret, I’ll share with all of my millions of readers (hahahaha!).

I tend to approach food prep intuitively—more like ART than SCIENCE. I will never be a food blogger, because I don’t really like to cook, and I am fundamentally opposed to following recipes. My goal, might I remind you, is tranquil domesticity, and nothing about having to hunt up a recipe and follow it to the letter spells tranquility for me.

So just as a word of warning, there will not be a precisely quantified recipe to follow (you can scroll to the bottom for the loosey-goosey one), and if you’re a real rules-keeper, you might want to just go for some other inferior, jazzed-up avocado toast on a food blog. But if you’re ready to take your avocado toast to the next level, stay with me.

Keepin’ it real

Much as I don’t like to cook, I DO like eating whole, real foods, and putting together simple meals with few ingredients. Often the simplest foods can bring the most pleasure, at least as far as I’m concerned.

So, for arguably the best avocado toast ever, here’s my version of the perfect technique: 

First, start with the right kind of toast, which MUST be sourdough. I usually make my own, with another recipe that is so simple you can’t help but commit it to memory (a post for another day). But we also have one grocery store in town which offers genuine sourdough, that really does vaguely resemble the stuff you get in San Francisco.

When I say “genuine sourdough,” I mean it’s made with only flour, salt, and water (and sometimes additionally oil and honey) and extended fermentation. 

Go for the gold

I usually toast twice. Artisan loaves tend to have a little more body to them, and take a little extra heat to get a slight “tan.” I like mine lightly golden and crispy on the edges. Even better if it’s freshly baked, but true sourdough loaves generally are still good at least after a little toasting up to a week after they’re baked–if they ever stick around that long!

As to the avocado, if your household is like mine, you’re intimately acquainted with levels of avocado ripeness, but just in case…  I like to purchase avocados* on the verge of darkening. Usually after a day or two of sitting out on the counter, the outer skin turns mostly black (or amber/red, depending on the time of year grown).

It’s ready to eat if you can easily press a finger into the tough outer skin and tell that the insides are tender, but NOT yet separated from the skin. If it feels like the skin has begun to separate, sometimes you’re too late, but I’m not above cutting off a few small dark places if need be!

It’s all in the wrist

Slice the avocado lengthwise around the pit, and then twist, allowing the pit to cling to one half, when pulling apart.  Unless it’s a really small variety (like the one in the picture) I usually immediately put the half with the pit into a lidded glass jar and into the fridge for the next day.

I hate dirtying extra utensils, but I’ve found for best results, I use the knife to halve, and then switch to a spoon. Insert the edge of the spoon to make horizontal slices and then scoop them lengthwise out of the intact skin.

Finally switch to a fork to roughly mash and spread the the avocado on to the toast. We’re not making guacamole here, so not much mashing is required!

Secret sauce

My secret ingredient, which can be procured online if you don’t have a local source, is “everything” seasoning. You know, like the “everything” bagels? The two I mention in the caption are my faves.

This is a little like the bagel experience (without one million carbs per bite), but better, because… sourdough! And then you have the creamy deliciousness of the avocado, which helps you to forget about cream cheese. Along with all the other dairy you miss since discovering you’re allergic…

“Everything” seasoning has sea salt and finely minced garlic and onion, which go great with the avocado. But black and white sesame seeds and poppy seeds steal the visual show, while adding texture and a slight nutty flavor. If you’ve ever had an “everything” bagel, you’ve been there. But I have to say I don’t love the actual bagels as much as I love this seasoning. You have my permission to use it for other stuff, too!

Around here, we do a liberal sprinkling of the “everything” seasoning onto the fork-mashed avocado, and breakfast (or an awesome snack) is ready! How easy was that?

A brief aside…

Hopefully while you’re dragging out all three ingredients plus the utensils, as well as getting the toasting done, you’ve remembered to start your coffee. I’ll share the coffee ritual in another post, also, for those of you who care.

And for those of you who don’t care, you probably shouldn’t miss it either. Remember, you don’t know what you don’t know. The pleasure of coffee drinking is a core tenet of my own tranquil domesticity. Perhaps that’s overstated… Then again, no.

Et voila!

So there you have it! Be sure to see the fancy-dancy “recipe” card below.

If it seems like I took something really simple and made it complicated… well, it’s what I’m best at. However, I hope there was at least some nugget of tranquil breakfast bliss you’re able to make your own.

How about you? Do you have a favorite breakfast ritual, that makes you look forward to getting up in the morning?

*Avocados are not on the dirty dozen list of produce. So you can get away with buying conventionally grown without as much risk of pesticide contamination. But as long as it’s not cost-prohibitive, I always try to buy organic. I can usually score a bag of organic avocados at Aldi for cheaper than conventional ones at other stores.