Avocado Pasta

It feels good to get the creative juices flowing again in my kitchen! In this experiment, I'd have to credit the lime juice with being the particular flavor flowing in this tasty almost-vegan dish.  On a whim one day I decided to figure out how to make avocados into a pasta sauce.  With only minimal instruction from the internet, I came up with this! I hope you guys like it! :)

Avocado Pasta

Simmering veggies!

1) I started by boiling a pot of water.  Once the water is boiling, I added in a box of whole wheat rotini-style pasta.  While the pasta was cooking, I prepared the veggies and the sauce.  After the pasta reached al dente (about 10-12 minutes), I strained the pasta and mixed it with the veggies and sauce.  But we will get to that in a moment!

2) To prepare the veggies, I started by sauteing sliced mushrooms in butter in a fairly deep skillet.  As they started  to brown, I added paprika and some olive oil. When they started to begin looking cooked, I added in a few cups of frozen peas and some lime juice.  As the veggies cooked, I added in some more olive oil and stirred the skillet to get everything coated and cooking evenly. After several minutes, I added in about 1/4 cup of pico de gallo and seasoned with chili powder and cumin.  I stirred everything one last time before covering the skillet and reducing the heat to low.  I left this to simmer while the pasta finished cooking.

Preparing the pasta sauce.
All hail the Magic Bullet!

 3) While stuff was boiling and simmering, I prepared the avocado pasta sauce.  I peeled and coarsely chopped two garlic cloves.  I placed the pieces in my handy-dandy Magic Bullet (I used the bigger cup with the four-prong, raised blade) along with a few tablespoons each of olive oil and lime juice.  I cut open an avocado and scooped the flesh into the blender cup.  I also happened to have an extra 1/2 of an avocado lying around, so I scooped the flesh of that one into the blender cup as well.  I added a little salt before blending.  I blended for about 30 seconds and saw that the sauce was a little too thick, so I added in some milk to thin it out.  

Veggies and pasta before adding sauce.

Probably shouldn't have used that extra 1/2 of an avocado!  You don't want the sauce to be watery, but you also don't want it so thick that it won't adequately cover your pasta and veggies.  Play around with the consistency until you like it! :p

4) After the pasta, veggies, and sauce were all ready, I mixed them all together in the pasta pot.  I ended up adding more chili powder and cumin as well as some jalapeno seasoned salt to the pasta before serving. I served it with shredded cheddar/monterey jack/colby cheese blend.  

Veggies and pasta covered in avocado sauce.

This pasta was great! It was vegetarian friendly and almost vegan friendly other than the butter for the mushrooms and the milk for the sauce. (Which could easily be modified if you so desired.) It also reheated very well the next day! The best part was that this dish got an Airicca's Yummy Rating of 7 despite the fact that she doesn't like peas.  She said with other veggies she would have given it an 8! (For those of you who don't know, Airicca is one of my best friends and my roommate...she's also pretty picky and quite the health-nut.  Getting a high rating from her is pretty impressive! :p Did I mention this is a 10pt scale? Well it is, and 10 is the high!)

Yummy avocado pasta with cheese on top!