Avocado Toast with a Twist

Avocado toast is a currently popular, healthy, lectin-free alternative to peanut butter or jam, or PB&J.  Breakfast, lunch, or an anytime snack are great reasons to give avocado toast a try.

Add Pesto for a Twist

I love avocado toast, especially with my signature twist of homemade, also incredibly healthy, pesto.

Featuring fresh basil and garlic from my backyard garden, my version of pesto can be quickly whipped up by adding parmesan, almonds, and just enough virgin olive oil (for the healthiest version) to create a paste. I use my Pampered Chef blender, love how well it works for this recipe.

Sorry, I never measure the ingredients when I blend a batch of pesto.  Or many other things for that matter.  You could Google a proper recipe for a guideline though.  Although traditional pesto recipes call for pine nuts, I prefer to use always-available-in-my-pantry almonds instead.  Remember, almonds contain healthy fatty acids.

I scrape a batch of pesto into an icecube tray, then freeze.  A few hours later, pop the cubes into a sealable container and store them in your freezer. 

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Cube of pesto

Uses for Pesto

My pesto cubes get added to soups, pasta, sauces, and more.  Just today I had pesto avocado toast with a few pieces of bacon left over from yesterday’s breakfast. 

Avocado toast
Crispy bacon

Pesto also makes a healthier substitute for mayo in a toasted tomato sandwich or a BLT.  I haven’t tried this yet, but can you imagine a macaroni or potato salad with pesto instead of mayo?

Use your imagination! The possibilities are endless. Let me know your favourites.

Avocado Keeps the Doctor Away

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Move over apples, the new health axiom is “an avocado a day keeps the doctor away.”

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pictures courtesy of Pexels

Why an Avocado is Good for You

Even though a medium-sized avocado adds around 250 calories to your daily intake and 24 grams of fat, the fat is predominantly the “good for your heart” monounsaturated variety.  Avocados also lower our “bad cholesterol” or LDL (low-density lipoproteins) because they contain high amounts of plant-based phytosterols.

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How to Incorporate Them into Your Daily Diet

Start by incorporating avocadoes into your daily meals.  Chopped, pureed, or mashed, use your imagination to try avocados for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Just be careful what you eat them with.  In other words, skip the chips.

Keeping in mind that a healthy allotment of fat is 65 grams within a daily diet of 2000 calories, simply replace the fats you have been eating for years with avocado.  Eliminate the “not so good for you” fats like margarine or butter, peanut butter, oils, and mayonnaise.  Avocado toast has become a popular and healthy breakfast treat.

As well as the heart-healthy fat, you will be adding vitamins, minerals, and fiber with this substitution.

photo credit

Plan your encore career

Encore careers are becoming increasingly popular, especially within the baby boomer generation.  After a stress laden career, baby boomers are often not quite ready to retire completely, so find a way to continue earning money doing something they enjoy.  An encore career is usually something totally different from  the original career.  This change of focus to something more enjoyable and relaxing can be exhilarating and healthy for active baby boomers.

Growing Bolder's photo.

 

So, if you have been working for years in the same career or same type of job, consider a stress-free encore career.  If you can collect a partial pension or severance package when you leave the old job, all the better.  Find something you are good at that people are willing to pay money for, and start your own business.  It does not have to be a large business and is easier than you think.   You will be amazed at the improvement in both your physical and mental health.