We started Green Kitchen Stories to challenge ourselves to keep trying out new nutritious recipes. We hoped that our recipes could inspire others who wanted to eat good, healthy food, but we never expected to reach as many as we’ve done. And we never ever imagined that we would also meet new friends through this blog.
When we first wrote about our trip around the world we got lots of tips on where to go and what to see. A lot of people told us that we had to come to Santa Cruz, so we spent last week there. And while we were there we actually met a couple of our readers that quickly became new friends.
Meet Damaris from Kitchen Corners! She invited us to celebrate Halloween with her family (Elsa’s super cute skeleton costume was a gift from them). We ended up spending almost the whole week with her and her sweet husband Christian, their oh so funny and cute son Enzo and their little beautiful baby Maria.
We cooked (the salad is a version of our Quinoa & Kale Salad), went to the beach and to the aquarium together. They made us ice cream and we did our frozen pink cheesecake. They learned us how to cook brazillian cassava root, beans and rice, acai with granola (Luise’s new obsession) and to pray before eating. We had a blast!
We also met Nancy and her friend Jennifer. Nancy has got an avocado orchard, a couple of miles south of Santa Cruz. We were invited for lunch to see her orchard and vegetable garden. It is a beautiful place with an amazing view, and their avocados … so much flavor! They made us a delicious and wholesome lunch with sweet potato hummus, gluten free crackers, pumpkin bread, dosa, goat cheese, apple sauce, avocados and a lot more. And for dessert she had made homemade avocado chocolate fudge pop-sickles. Yum!
Before we left we got a basket of handpicked avocados and limes to take with us, this is what we cooked.
Warm Avocado Soup
Serves 4 as a starter
Since it’s autumn we wanted to make a warm soup, but it actually tastes good cold as well. The lime and mint gives a fresh touch to it. Perfect as a starter or a lunch.
If you aren’t lucky enough to handpick your own avocados we guess store bought will have to do …
olive oil
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic
1/2 inch fresh ginger, minced
a pinch of dried chili
2 lime, juice
10 mint leaves
3 medium size avocados
1 cup water
salt & pepper
Mint olive oil:
Stomp 15-20 mint leaves in a mortar, add 3 tbsp olive oil. Let it sit for a while before dripping it over the soup.
Add olive oil to a pan on medium heat. Sauté onion, garlic, ginger and chili until soft. Place in a blender together with the rest of the ingredients. Pulse it and taste, add more salt and water if needed. Pour it into a pot and heat it before serving. Top with a couple of drips of the Mint olive oil. Enjoy!
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