Grilled Asparagus Avocado Crostini

(Editor's note: Before I start this post, I feel it important to mention the elephant in the room- or at least, the elephant-sized space that's appearing at the top of this post between the title and post itself.  I have no idea why it's there or how to get rid of it.  Please indulge me and ignore my technical difficulties, and focus instead on the deliciousness contained in this posting.  Thank you for your cooperation.)

 It's finally Spring, which means it's farmer's market season again!  Seeing as I love vegetables and being outside, farmer's markets are right up my alley.  Apparently it's high season for asparagus, since every stall had tons of the stuff, so of course we had to get some. Most of the asparagus was of the thicker variety, less delicate and better for grilling, and that's what inspired the delightful lunch of asparagus avocado crostini.  The recipe is loosely based off of this one , except mine has more outdoorsyness (grilling) and cuter, more delicious bread (does anyone really like rye bread?)

These crostini made for a lovely, Spring-y, light lunch. I could definitely see making them to bring to a picnic or as an appetizer.  There were a few different components that went into this that might make it seem labor intensive, but really it wasn't hard to throw together. Grill up some asparagus and bread, put mashed avocado and Parmesan on top, and voila! Done.  If you don't feel like grilling this could also be done by roasting in the oven, but grilling does add a nice flavor to it all. 

Start by marinating the asparagus in some olive oil, garlic, and sea salt, and brushing the bread with olive oil. 

Grill both ingredients (full disclosure- I wasn't the one grilling). 

When the bread is done, spread the avocado mixture on top. 

Cut the asparagus to the size of the bread, and lay it on top. 

Sprinkle on some Parmesan and sea salt.  It doesn't have to be perfect- just scatter it and trust that Parmesan 

cheese has the magical quality of making everything taste and look better almost always. 

Cook on the top rack of the grill, with the top closed, just long enough to melt the cheese. 

Take a picture of your dog asking for Parmesan while the crostini are cooking.  

Remind yourself that you're supposed to be focusing on food, not small furry mammals that are waving at you on your porch.  

Resume cooking.

Ta-da! Finished product. To me they just scream "Spring!", which is exactly what I want after a very cold winter. 

Although I should mention that being an herbivore, none of my food actually screams. 

Which I definitely consider to be a positive. 

The finished crostino. Fun fact- crostino is singular, crostini is plural.  

In case anyone has ever tried to incorrectly say "crostinis", now you can judge them and snobbishly correct their grammar. 

On to the recipe!

Ingredients:

About 2/3 of a bunch of thick asparagus

1 baguette, sliced into thick rounds 

1 avocado

Parmesan cheese

2 tsp lemon juice

4 cloves of garlic 

Sea Salt

Ground black pepper 

Olive oil

Directions:

1. Cut the tough ends off the asparagus.  Marinate the asparagus in 4 cloves of crushed garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Cut the bread into rounds, brush with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt. Optional- gently crush a clove of garlic and rub it on the bread before coating in olive oil. 

2. Grill the asparagus and bread until the asparagus is cooked and the bread is browned. While it's grilling, mash the avocado with lemon juice, salt, and pepper. 

3. Spread the mashed avocado on the cooked bread. Cut the asparagus into pieces and place on top of the avocado spread. Top with a sprinkle of sea salt and grated Parmesan. 

4. Cook on the top part of the grill, with the cover down, just until the cheese is melted.  If your grill doesn't have a top part (the technical term for it, obviously) then just be really careful that you don't burn the bread as the cheese melts.

5. Done!  Consume immediately for best results. 

Beet Burgers

Beet burgers are delicious (dare I say they can't be…. beat??).  I know there's a lot of beet haters out there (which is totally beat, dude), but these burgers deserve a chance.  (I'm sorry.  Had to get the beet puns out of my system.)  I'd venture to say that you don't even really taste a specific beet-y flavor in them, since the beets meld with everything else in the "meat" mixture.  The thing that these beets do impart on the burgers is their color: bright red, which makes the burger mixture look suspiciously like raw meat.  It makes me feel like a carnivore.  But the nice kind.  I guess I should also mention that I feel like a carnivore when I have to butcher a cauliflower or skin a roasted pepper.  But I digress.

The recipe for these burgers comes from my all time favorite food blog, Post Punk Kitchen.  I use recipes from the blog and the books that the blogger, Isa, has written, and have yet to find a recipe that I don't like.  You can find the original beet burger recipe here.  I didn't change the original recipe very much, but what I did change is the toppings.  Isa serves hers pretty much plain but I always add lettuce, caramelized onions, and tsadziki, which really puts it over the top.

Frying up that burger meat

Recipe notes:

• The original recipe calls for "shredded beets".  I have used both canned (cooked) beets as well as freshly cooked beets, and both have worked just fine.  My preference is to have raw beets which are roasted until al dente, as in they're soft enough to be stabbed by a fork but aren't quite cooked enough to be eaten alone.  I find that these beets give a little more texture to the burger, but feel free to use the soft canned beets if that's what you have.
• Tsadziki sauce needs time to meld after you make it, so definitely mix this up first and then let it hang out in the fridge while you ruthlessly wrestle beets (….beat up the beets?  Sorry.)  The more time the tsadziki has to let its ingredients mingle, the better.
• As you cook the beet burgers, have your oven on at a low temperature, like 250 f.  As the beets finish cooking in the pan, pop them into the oven to keep them warm and cook the inside a bit more.  I like my beet burgers done medium-well, not still mooing on the plate...err, beet-ing on the plate?  (Beating on the plate?? Last pun.  I promise.  Maybe.)

Click here for the Beet Burger recipe. Isa does such a fabulous job blogging it that I don't feel the need to re-do it here.  See below for the accouterments.

Tsadziki Sauce:

• 1 small container of Greek Yogurt (single serving size)
• 1/2 a cucumber, seeded and very finely chopped
• 1 1/2 tsp fresh chopped dill
• 1-4 cloves of garlic, minced (depending on your tolerance for spicy garlic flavor)
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• Salt to taste

Combine everything in a bowl and mix thoroughly.  Since it's a sauce, it's very forgiving- so taste, taste, taste, and adjust everything to your palate.  Cover and let sit in refrigerator until ready to use.  The longer you let it sit, the better the flavors will combine.

Caramelized Onions:

• 1 large onion, or 2 small/medium onions
• 1 1/2 Tbs olive oil
• 1 1/2 Tbs Smart Balance
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• Salt to taste

Thinly slice the onion.  Melt the oil, Smart Balance, and brown sugar in a pan over medium-high heat.  Add the onion and a sprinkle of salt, and mix so that the onions are coated by the oil.  Cook on medium high until the onions are lightly softened and some of the water has evaporated off.  Turn heat down to medium-low and let the onions cook, covered, stirring frequently, for about 20 minutes.  The onions are done when they are a deep brown color and really mushy looking.

You can make these as burgers, or put the burgers on top of lettuce and call it a salad.  Sometimes the burgers can get crumbly, in which case salad is a much easier option because of the whole using-a-fork thing.  Either way, it's delicious. 

Chickpea Pot Pie with Sweet Potato Crust

Pot pie is one of those things that's easy to love and hard to hate.  I mean, who can really have any bad feelings towards something that's such a great, warm comfort food, combining a stew-like interior with a deliciously crisp top?  No one, that's who.  Anyway as delicious and comforting as they are, traditional pot pies are not generally known for their health benefits.  Enter the Chickpea Pot Pie with Sweet Potato Crust: delicious and comforting as ever, but now veganized and healthy.  This pot pie was put together using inspiration from two different sources, this one for the crust and this one for the filling.  Some of the ingredients are changed to keep it vegan (helllooo, flax egg!) but the basics stayed mostly the same.

Some recipe notes:

• Make the crust first, then let it chill in the fridge while you make the filling.
• Due to my hatred of having to wash any more dishes than absolutely necessary, I made one giant pot pie in a casserole dish.  You can totally make single-serving pot pies in ramekins, just make sure to evenly split up the filling and crust.  Don't want any naked and crustless pies running around. (Editor's note: If your pie has legs on which to run around, it is probably not vegan.)
• The dough for the crust will be really soft, and thus difficult to roll out and lay on top of the pie.  My solution- roll the dough out on the plastic wrap that it's already been wrapped in.  Once it's the right size, ninja-flip it onto the casserole dish (and don't forget to peel the plastic wrap off).  If this results in dough flung onto your walls, floor, ceiling, and/or face, please find a set of extra hands to help you on the 2nd try.
• In the recipe I mention that you have to let the filling become thick and bubbly before baking it.  Don't skip this step- once the pot pie is assembled, the dough will be covering the top and the liquid won't evaporate any more, so you want to make sure it's thick before going in the oven.  Unless you like runny pot pies, but….ew.
• The pot pie mixture is very forgiving.  Add or subtract your favorite veggies to the ones I have listed to make this your own.

Sweet Potato Crust Ingredients:

• 1 Cup AP flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 Cup mashed sweet potato (cool, or at least not hot)
• 1/3 Cup vegetable oil
• 1 flax egg (1 Tbs ground flax seed mixed with 3 Tbs water) (Or you can just use an egg if you're into that kinda thing)
• 1/2 tsp minced thyme
• Ground black pepper

Sweet Potato Crust Directions:

1. Make your flax egg first, and let it sit for a few minutes while you do the next few steps.  It needs to sit to morph into an egg-ish texture.
2. In a food processor, pulse the flour, baking powder and salt.  
3. Blend in the rest of the ingredients (including the flax egg) until a dough has formed.
4. Cover the dough in plastic wrap, and let it sit in the fridge until you're ready to use it.

Pot Pie Filling Ingredients:

• 2 cups chopped white potatoes (or sweet potatoes if you prefer)
• 1/2 cup chopped carrots
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup AP flour
• 2 cups veggie broth
• 2 cups of cooked chickpeas (or 2 cans, drained and rinsed)
• 1/2 cup peas (I used frozen)
• 1/2 cup corn
• salt
• pepper

Pot Pie Recipe:

1. Boil potatoes and carrots until al-dente tender, a.k.a. soft but not mushy.  Pre-heat oven to 375 f.
2. In a large pan over medium heat, sauté onions in the oil until soft, about 5 minutes.  Add in the crushed garlic and cook for another minute.  Mix the 1/4 cup of flour.
3. Slowly whisk the veggie broth in with the flour and onions.  Don't rush this part- you want to pour in small amounts of broth at a time and let the flour incorporate with the liquid before adding more.  Rush it and you'll end up with a lumpy goo that won't thicken, which, in my humble opinion, does not make the most attractive pot pie.
4. Keep whisking the mixture until it's thick and bubbly, which should take 2 or 3 minutes.
5. Add in the rest of the veggies- the (drained, of course) carrots and potatoes, chickpeas, corn, and peas.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Keep cooking for another 4 or 5 minutes until the entire mixture is heated through.
6. Pour the filling into a 2-quart casserole dish.  Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it out on the plastic wrap so that it's the size of the casserole dish (don't be afraid to use flour-coated hands to manipulate the dough if it's too sticky to roll).  Use the plastic wrap to flip the dough onto the top of the dish (see above notes).
7. Place a baking pan under the casserole dish to catch any drips, then pop it in the oven for 10-12 minutes or until the top is browned.  Let it cool for a few minutes before serving.

Banana Bread Cookies

After (another) cold day of shoveling snow, all I want to do is drink hot chocolate and eat something warm that I've baked.  Today, these banana bread cookies did the trick- quick and easy to make, healthy, and most importantly, delicious.

These cookies also solved my issue of the Plight of the Single Banana.  (Spoiler alert- if you could care less about my neurotic rantings on bananas, skip this paragraph to get to the good stuff below.)  Maybe it's just me, but I feel like I very rarely have 2 or 3 overripe bananas sitting around to make banana bread.  In my house, bananas go quickly.  However, once in a while, there's that single banana that gets ripe on the sly, so that no one notices until it's just a tad too brown to be appetizing.  The Single Ripe Banana always gives me problems, because I want to put it to good use but don't really want to eat it, but also have no other ripe banana companions to make into bread.  Enter: banana bread cookies.  They only require a single banana, but still have full banana bread flavor.

The recipe for this comes from a vegan cookie book written by Isa Chandra, one of my favorite vegan chef/authors.  I tweaked things ever so slightly, but most things stayed the same.

Ingredients:

• 1 very ripe medium banana
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 cup plus 2 Tbs AP flour
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 cups quick-cooking oats
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• Cinnamon sugar, for sprinkling

Recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease two baking sheets.
2. In a medium size bowl, mash the banana (you can just use a fork).  Add oil, sugar, and vanilla, and mix together.
3. Add the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt, and mix until all the ingredients are just combined.
4. Add the oats, walnuts, and chocolate chips.  Make sure everything is mixed together well.  If the dough is really loose still, add a bit more flour.
5. Roll the dough into balls, and flatten slightly on the baking sheet.  If the dough sticks to your hands, you can wet your hands to smooth out the tops.  Or just leave them jagged and imperfect. They're homemade cookies, dammit.
6. (Optional) Sprinkle some cinnamon sugar over the tops.
7. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until lightly browned.  Let them cool for a couple minutes on the tray before transferring them to a cooling rack.

As you can see, I totally gave up on the smooth, perfect cookie and opted for the more rugged look.  I also may or may not have eaten about four of these cookies straight out of the oven and burned my tongue on molten chocolate.  Totally worth it.

Vegan Veggie Cashew Curry

There's nothing like a warm, slightly spicy curry on a cool fall evening.  The aromatic blend of spices wafting through the house, ensuring that your entire abode reeks of curry for the next 24 hours.  Perfect.  This is by no means an authentic curry, but is instead an americanized, veganized version.  It is a 1-pot curry, not counting the blender for the cashew cream, because I am lazy and don't want to wash a bunch of pots, so it doesn't use some of the fancier cooking techniques that other curries use.  But it also doesn't use any unhealthy cream, or even coconut milk, that a lot of curries use, which means you can eat a lot of it and not feel gross and full of unhealthy creaminess.  This recipe is also very forgiving so that you can just add things, taste, and add more things until you like what you're tasting.  The recipe here gives the basic ingredients, but you should trust your own palate and feel free to change around amounts or ingredients.  Also, this recipe is a great way to use a bunch of different vegetables, so feel free to add or subtract various veggies to your liking.

Serve this over rice, quinoa, or whatever you like.  It is very saucy, so you'll want to eat it with a grain or something.  On a side note, this makes excellent leftovers- the longer you leave it, the more the sauce flavors permeate the veggies and make them even more delicious.

 A few notes on the recipe:

• Curry. All curries are different.  In fact, the definition of "curry" is a blend of spices.  Quite unhelpful, if you ask me.  But the point is that no one curry is the same, so you might have to experiment- the amount of curry you use will depend on how strong the flavor is and how spicy or mild it tastes.  For this recipe I use yellow curry, which is super mild but has that delicious generic curry flavor, plus garam masala, a more strongly flavored and spicier curry.  The end result is a good flavor with just a bit of a kick of spice, but see what curry works best for your palate.

• There are 2 times when you will want to mildly panic, if you're like me.  Do not panic.  The first time is when you add the spices to the pot and they all stick to the bottom.  Do not panic.  Veggie broth will be added, the bottom of the pot will be deglazed, and all will be well with the world.  The second time is when you blend the soy milk/corn starch mixture with the cashew cream.  It will look weird, kind of foamy and wrong and not what you expect, and probably not taste good if you tried it.  Do not panic.  When this mysterious mixture is added to the veggie broth/curry, it will transform into a luxurious, delicious, creamy curry sauce, thanks to the magical thickening powers of corn starch.  You'll just have to trust me.

Start by boiling the heartier vegetables in veggie broth after you've mixed in the spices

Make the weirdly foamy cashew cream sauce.  And trust in the cashew gods to make everything OK.

Add the cashew concoction to the veggies and broth, and stir it all together.....

Ta-da! Creamy curry sauce.  Thanks be to the cashew gods.

Ingredients:

The veggies
2 Tbs olive oil
1 large onion
2 medium potatoes
3 carrots
1 large zucchini (or 2 small ones)
1 red pepper
1 head broccoli
1/3 head cauliflower
1 can chickpeas (or tofu, drained and pressed)

The spices
5 cloves of garlic, minced
3 Tbs yellow curry powder
1 1/2 Tbs garam masala
1/4 tsp salt (or more to taste)
heaping 1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp turmeric
optional 1/4 tsp each of coriander and cumin
3 cups veggie broth

The cream sauce
1 1/2 cups raw cashews
1 cup veggie broth
1/2 cup soymilk
heaping 1 Tbs corn starch

Recipe:

1. Start the cream sauce: Throw the raw cashews and 1 cup veggie broth into a pot.  Boil for 10-20 minutes, or until the cashews have softened.
2. Chop the onion, potatoes, and carrots into bite-sized chunks.  Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat and throw in the root veggies. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon.
3. Add in all of The Spices, except for the veggie broth, to the vegetable mixture.  Cook for a few minutes until the spices are fragrant.  
4. Add the veggie broth.  Scrape the wooden spoon along the bottom of the pot to get all of the spices incorporated.  Cover the pot and let cook for about 10 minutes.
5. While the root vegetables are cooking, chop up the other veggies into bite-sized pieces.  After 10 minutes add the broccoli and cauliflower, making sure to stir once in a while.  5 minutes later, add the other vegetables and chickpeas and continue to cook.
6. While all the veggies are cooking, make the cashew sauce.  Take your (now softened) cashews and blend them with the veggie broth you cooked them in until the mixture is smooth and creamy.  In a separate container whisk together the soymilk and corn starch, then blend it in with the cashew cream.  
7. Add the cashew cream mixture to the pot, which now has all of the vegetables in it.  Mix thoroughly to incorporate the cream throughout the whole thing.  Allow to cook for another 10 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened a bit and the vegetables are cooked all the way through.

Yum.

Lentil Tacos

I love tacos.  Unfortunately, vegetarians often don't get to experience the wonderfulness of tacos when eating out at a restaurant because they always ruin the tacos by adding meat.  Silly restaurants.  But really, there are so many awesome vegetarian spins on tacos- black bean, ground soymeat, lentil, etc - that are healthier (and tastier, in my humble opinion) than the original.  A staple meal in my house is lentil tacos, which take the deliciousness of normal tacos and amp it up with some roasted red pepper and sweet potatoes.  Eat it as a taco.  Eat it as a taco salad.  Eat it cold, wrapped in a piece of lettuce, standing in your kitchen because you realized you were hungry and the food you were actually cooking for dinner wasn't ready yet.  Or you can be more civilized than I am.

While the tacos aren't super labor-intensive, they do take a bit of time mostly because you have to give the red pepper and sweet potatoes time to roast in an oven.  And then ideally you want to give the pepper time to cool before taking the skin off, or you'll end up scalding your fingers trying to remove the skin.  I usually end up following the burned finger method because I have no patience for cooling food, but.... do as I say, not as I do?  Let the pepper cool.  I'm just trying to protect you.

I'm now going to ramble on about lentils for a minute.  If you have better things to do than read a lentil rant, please skip this paragraph.  Still reading?  Ok.  There's lots of different types of lentils out there, and often they're also interchangeable with split peas.  Some lentils hold their shape when cooked (like yellow, red, and black), while others get mushy (brown and green). Both have their merits, but for this recipe I prefer "meatier" lentils, aka the non mushy ones.  My favorite is split black lentils, which look black and white, because they have a firmer texture. Mushy tacos just do not sound appealing, though if you're careful to cook the lentils al dente then any kind should be passable. 

Veggies pre-roasting.

Post-roasting.  Also, for anyone who's not sure what a roasted pepper should look like.... ta-da!  It should be blackened in spots with wrinkly skin, and deflated/mushy-ish.  Not the most attractive thing, but deceptively delicious.

Cooking the lentils

Ingredients:

2 medium red peppers

2 sweet potatoes

1 medium onion

1 1/4 cup lentils- black, yellow, red.... See my lentil rant for suggestions. 

3 cups veggie broth

1 packet taco seasoning

Sharp cheddar cheese, grated

Lettuce

Tomato

Salt

Pepper

Olive oil

Flour tortillas

Directions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350.  Coat the red peppers in olive oil, poke a couple holes in them with forks (it's never happened, but I always worry about exploding peppers), and pop them in the oven.  Peel and dice the sweet potatoes, toss them with some olive oil, salt, and pepper, and pop them in the oven too.  Cook until they're softened and browned- between 30-50 minutes, depending on your oven. Just make sure to poke and turn them once in a while. 
2. Finely chop the onion and throw it in a medium pot over medium heat with some olive oil. Cook until the onions are translucent, then add in the taco seasoning and lentils. Stir for a minute until the seasoning is fragrant, then add in 2 cups of veggie broth. 
3. Turn the heat to medium low so that the lentils are simmering. Cover, stirring once in a while, until the lentils are cooked. Depending on how thirsty the lentils are, you may need to add in more broth during the cooking process. 
4. Don't forget to check on the pepper and sweet potato in the oven! Turn them so all sides get browned. 
5. Prep the other toppings while everything is cooking: chop the tomato, grate the cheese, chop the lettuce. 
6. When the pepper is done, let it cool and then peel the skin and remove the seeds from the inside. Chop it into pieces. 
7. Once everything is done, build your taco/ taco salad/ whatever. You can also put salsa or sour cream on top, but the flavorful roasted veggies do a pretty solid job on their own. 
8. Enjoy! Cold or hot, I always find these tacos delicious and totally craveable. 

Soyrizo Mac n' Sweet Potato

I made this dish with my sister last week when we got Soyrizo (soy Chorizo) and wanted to experiment with it, and have been craving to make it again ever since.  It's a bit complicated- there will definitely be dishes to do after this one- since there's a few different components to it, but I promise it's really delicious.  Make this on one of those days when you're really motivated to cook and in the mood for something awesome.  Oh, and did I mention that it's pretty good for you?

What makes this dish so magical is the combination of ingredients- A sweet potato mac n' cheese topped with caramelized onion soyrizo, roasted red pepper, and coarsely mashed avocado (sounds fancy, huh?).  With that said, however, the sweet potato mac n' cheese was really good on it's own, and could definitely be paired with other things as well.  Get those creative juices flowing!  (Ew. Creative juices sounds gross.  But you know what I mean.)

By the way, the sauce is based off of this recipe but we doubled everything and omitted some stuff.  But just in case you don't trust me and want a different source.  Go there.

Who knew sweet potatoes could be so saucy?

Mac n' Sweet Potato Ingredients:

1 lb small shell pasta, or other adorably small pasta shape of your choice
2 Tbs Smart Balance
2 Tbs Flour
1/2 cup plain soymilk or soy creamer
1 cup cooked, pureed sweet potato
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese, or other sharp cheese
1/2 tsp nutmeg
salt and pepper
reserved pasta cooking water

Mac n' Sweet Potato Directions:

1. Boil some water and cook the pasta.  If you can't figure out how to do this on your own, then you probably won't make it through the rest of the recipe.  So I won't elaborate on the pasta cooking.
2. Melt the Smart Balance in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat.  Add in the flour and whisk, whisk, whisk for about 2 minutes until the flour is cooked.  
3. Add the soymilk and pureed sweet potato.  Keep whisking! We want this to be a smooth sauce, no chunkiness allowed.
4. Add about 5 Tbsp of pasta water, and then whisk in the grated cheese.
5. Add the nutmeg, then salt and pepper to taste.
6. The sauce will still be pretty thick.  If you want it thinner, add in more soymilk or pasta water until it reaches the desired consistency.
7. Combine sauce and pasta (which I'm sure you cooked perfectly).

Thick, creamy sauces are the best.  Especially when covering mini pasta.
Mini things are just better.

Meanwhile.....

I don't want to hear anyone badmouthing my Soyrizo.
Because if you tasted this you would change your mind.

Everything Else Ingredients:

1 Red Pepper

1 Avocado

2 Onions (I used 1 Vidalia onion and 1 normal onion, but whatever you have is fine)

6 oz Soyrizo (or half of the 12 oz package. Since half of 12 is 6.  College win.)

1 Tbs Smart Balance

1 Tbs Olive Oil

Salt and Peper

Everything Else Directions:

1. Roast the pepper- rub some olive oil on it and pop it into an oven at 350 degrees.  Let it roast until it's blackened.  
2. Slice the onion.  
3. Melt 1 Tbs Smart Balance with 1 Tbs Olive Oil in a medium pan over medium heat.
4. Add the onion to the pan, sprinkle on some salt, and stir for about 2 minutes.  Cover and cook for another 5 or so minutes, stirring every once in a while.
5. Turn down the heat to low and let the onions continue to cook for the next 10sih minutes, still stirring and keeping the pan covered.
6. Check your pepper! Turn it over, poke it a bit, maybe sing it a song.  If it's done, take it out and let it cool before peeling off the skin and slicing it into little pieces.  If it's not done, then let it keep roasting.  Duh.
7. Crumble the Soyrizo into the pan with the onions.  Turn the heat up to medium/high and cook until the Soyrizo is browned.  Make sure to stir frequently!  The Soyrizo had a tendency to want to stick to the pan, so just keep it moving and keep scraping the bottom of the pan so nothing gets stuck.  You can add in a little extra olive oil if you need it.
8. Slice and gently mash the avocado- you still want some chunks for a bit of texture.  If it's a really good avocado then just let that flavor shine through, otherwise you can add in some salt/pepper/garlic powder/ whatever to liven it up a bit.  I understand, flavor-lacking avocados do happen sometimes.  
9. Hopefully everything is done at this point.  Put some mac n' sweet potato in a bowl, top with the caramelized onion/ soyrizo mixture, and the top that with some roasted red pepper and the avocado.  Try not to gobble it down too fast and fall into a food coma like I did.

Try it.  You won't be disappointed.