I know how in love we all are with avocados. I get it. They're the rave of 2016 and 2017. Avocados are great to pair with any meal. They're tasty, a good source of fat, and they make you trendy. From avocado toast to guac, if you have an avocado dish you know it's going to be a good meal.
Last year I remember receiving snapchats from my friend who goes to UMD and lived in her sorority house. The chef in her sorority house would serve her lunch with a side of avocado. Nothing on it...just a side of avocado. This is when I suspected that the avocado trend was about to go a little too far.
In the past few months new avocado recipes have been surfacing the internet and have made me wonder the greatness of avocados everywhere. Below are some of the absurd avocado dishes that make me think avocados should go off the grid for a little while so they no longer have to be embarrassed.
1. Avocado Spread
Starbucks released this avocado spread in their new spring menu. When I first heard about this I was really disappointed. This is basically knock off avocado toast. One of the reasons people love avocados is because of their freshness. Mashed avocado out of a plastic container does not sound very fresh. Avocado deserves more than to be processed and packaged into plastic. Treat it better and give yourself the extra time to make true avocado toast.
2. Avocado Cookies/Brownies
I'm all about being healthy and choosing the better choices to cut out extra calories but come on. The expression "treat yo self" exists for a reason. Leave cookies and brownies to their traditional ingredients like butter and flour. I understand substituting greek yogurt or bananas for other ingredients for allergy reasons, or adding raisins instead of chocolate chips, but not using avocado as a base. Avocado cookies and brownies are just taking avocados to an unlocked extreme.
3. Avocado Eggs
This all started off as putting avocado on your BEC and now people have become fearful of bread and bacon as if they are the apocalypse. So what's the solution? Baking an egg in an avocado? This just looks messy. First off, in order to make these you're going to have to scoop out part of the avocado in order for the egg to fit inside. That is so wasteful. Then you eat a plain baked egg and warm, mushy avocado? Yeah, I'll take the bacon and bagel. Please keep it simple and just add avocado to your breakfast sandwiches.
4. Avocado Ice Cream
Frozen avocado? The idea of licking frozen avocado is even more weird than the idea of avocado ice cream. I don't know how to make these, but I honestly don't even want to know. The only time you should want to eat cold avocados is if it is guacamole. The avocado trend has been taken too far with this dish.
5. Avocado Margaritas
This one really gave me a good laugh. The only way I could see this creation coming about is from being super drunk and spilling your margarita into your guac because how else do you come up with making an avocado margarita? Margaritas should be left with just tequila in the glass and the avocado should stay on your plate. Do not mix tequila with avocado.
6. Avocado Hummus
I've heard of red pepper hummus, garlic hummus, lemon hummus but avocado hummus? I just don't understand. Do you eat it with tortilla chips or pita chips? Keep the avocados out of the chickpeas.
7. Avocado Pasta Sauce
My nana is a first generation American with both of her parents from Italy. She would be very disappointed with people trading tomatoes for avocados in pasta sauce. First, people don't want gluten in their pasta and now they don't even want tomatoes in their sauce. I don't even know what is bound to happen next. Are people going to start not even eating Italian food?
8. Avocado Pancakes
This doesn't even sound appetizing. Just imagine drizzling maple syrup over an avocado because that's exactly what you get with avocado pancakes. The battle of sweet and savory is always a challenge but this doesn't even fall under that category. There are so many other add ins you can experiment with when it comes to pancakes but avocado? This is taking the avocado trend a little too far, once again.
I completely feel for everyone who wants to incorporate avocado into every food dish possible. However, as great as avocado is, sometimes it's better to keep your avocado dishes simple rather than experimenting and creating weird food. Let's try to go back to the basics and glorify the OG avocado dishes.