Holy hot avocados. Until this summer, I hated avocados (and guacamole). After a taste of my friend Christina‘s guac (just to be polite) this summer, I’ve converted.  Especially when they are hot. I toss cubed handfuls into eggs with cheddar cheese (green eggs no ham) and into stir fries. The few friends I’ve shared this discovery with have all had the same response: “What happens to the avocado? Does it melt?” Nope. It gets nice and soft and even richer in taste. And it imparts that richness to the rest of the dish. So yes, holy hot avocados.

After a relaxing child-free, spa-filled weekend at the Lodge at Woodloch with Christina [A lovely surprise present for each of us from our husbands], I came home armed with recipe ideas and creative juices flowing. We watched a cooking demo using fresh ingredients with natural medicinal properties like shitake mushrooms, asparagus, watercress and leeks. Nathanial Whitmore, a herbalist from Hawley, Pennsylvania, was on hand to explain to explain fascinating details like how shitake mushrooms have natural immune boosting properties.

The best take away from the entire weekend was this easy recipe for a soba noodle stir-fry sauce. And a discovery that Hoisin sauce is not non-vegetarian after all (read the label though just to be sure). It’s a perfect blend of salty and sweet and pairs really well with nutty sesame oil. This has become my go-to weeknight meal – especialy since all of the sauce ingredients are always stocked in my fridge.

Kale chips have been everywhere. Every magazine and food blogger seems have to have shared a method, recipe and variation.  With each article and post, I rolled my eyes a little. Because we already love kale in my house. In my head I was thinking “I don’t need to transform it into a faux potato chip to get my family to eat it.”

We eat it with pasta loaded with veggie sausage and garlicky breadcrumbs.  We chop it and up toss into yellow lentils.  We warm up with a bowl of chewy bean and vegetable stone soup with bits of kale.  So why waste any of my kale making into crispy chips?

Because it gets really crunchy. And it has a deep, light flavor scored with the sesame seed oil I splashed over it and sesame seeds sprinkled on top with kosher salt. And and and it’s healthy for you.

I topped off a bowl of these Sesame Garlic Soba Noodles with a thick layer of Crispy Sesame Kale from Vegan YumYum.

Two huge events have happened in my life within the last week.  First, I snuck away to have a baby.  Our beautiful baby girl, Surya, arrived last Thursday and we have been completely preoccupied with loving on her ever since.  Second, I’ve turned over my kitchen to my mother for the next three weeks.  Fortunately, I put my -pre-delivery “nesting” instincts to good use and wrote up a few posts before Surya arrived, so hopefully you won’t even notice that I’m gone.

Have you ever tried to describe the taste of a bean?  I’ve been asking around, and my 8 year old niece came up with the best answers so far.  Her first was “beany” and her second was “nothing.”  After giving this question some thought [yes, I've actually been sitting around thinking about this question, asking people their thoughts and searching on the internet for an appropriate description], I think her second response is close to accurate.  Is it true that beans and lentils have no taste on their own and are just conduits for the spices and flavors they are cooked with?  Or do they have a flavor by themselves and, if so, what flavor is that?

When I think of beans and lentils, I think of tastes like buttery, salty and savory, nutty and creamy.  But a bowl of unseasoned lentils is like a mouthful of chalk.