Here we are on post #2 of my New Year’s resolutions. If you missed the first post on my beauty resolution you can read that one here. As I said in my first resolutions post, I’m focusing this year on goals that are actually fun for me but also have a positive impact on my life. I know many of us make resolutions to lose weight each year, which usually results in crash dieting and depriving ourselves of the foods we love the most (I’m looking at you cheese!). I personally don’t eliminate all the foods I love from my diet to stay at a healthy weight, but instead, I focus on moderation and consciously incorporating healthier foods into my diet. My health resolution this year is to continue to improve upon the food choices I make as well as find delicious and simple but also healthy recipes (like the poached egg avocado toast recipe below) to ensure that I’m not having too many nights of eating pasta out of pure laziness. I’ve found that the more you make an effort to keep healthy foods and snacks in your kitchen will help create a habit of healthier eating without much effort put forth.
An now to the fun part, this is the first recipe I’ve ever done on the blog and I feel like I’m Martha Stewart-ing this up like no ones business! I’m also super excited to shoot in the kitchen of our home, which I haven’t featured much on the blog and am hoping to so more of. I’m so in love with an all white kitchen and literally everything but the appliances in ours is white. It gives such a bright look to the room and also worked especially nice when shooting photos.
Avocado toast has been all the rage over the past year. I know it’s also been associated as a “basic b*tch” fad along with Starbuck’s PSL but I for one still love it no matter what others may think. I started making this fairly recently and have been experimenting with various toppings and flavors. My husband and I both personally love to add a few dashes of hot sauce to give these a bit more of a kick, but if hot isn’t your thing there are a ton of options as to what you top the toast off with – a balsamic glaze anyone?!
Here are the ingredients for the avocado toast that I’m making today:
- 1 avocado (pitted, diced or mashed)
- 1-2 Campari tomatoes (diced)
- 2-3 leaves fresh basil (chopped)
- 1 egg
- Salt, pepper, red pepper flakes (to taste)
- 1 slice grain bread (toasted)
I start by heating a pot of water on the stove for poaching the egg and turning the oven on low broil (to toast the bread). When poaching an egg you don’t want to bring the water to a full boil but rather hot simmer (I usually do mine on medium heat). While the water is heating I work on chopping up the tomatoes, basil and avocado. I tend to mash up the avocado a pitch into a chunky guacamole-like consistency.
Once the water is hot and looks like it has a very small boil starting to take place I drop in the egg. Tip: crack the egg into a small bowl first and then slowly pour it into the water. I’ve found that 3 minutes is the perfect time to get a poached egg with all that runny yolk goodness. If that’s not your thing, leave it in another minute or two so that the yolk has a bit more time to firm up. While my egg is cooking, I throw my slice of bread into the oven (which is on broil) be careful to keep any eye on your bread because it will quickly go from golden to burnt in a matter of seconds! I tend to flip mine over to ensure both sides are nice and toasty.
After the bread is toasted, layer on your avocado followed by the tomatoes and, using a slotted spoon to drain out the water, your poached egg. I then sprinkle on the salt, pepper and red pepper flakes followed by the hot sauce and topped off with fresh basil. On occasion, I have also added chopped up fresh mozzarella cheese which is AMAZING!
And there you have it! A simple, healthy and amazingly delicious (and Instagram-worthy) meal. If this is considered “basic” then I don’t want to be anything else :)
What are some of your favorite simple and healthy go-to meals? Let me know in the comments!
