CEiMB: Broccoli & Cheddar Stuffed Potato Skins with Avocado Cream

Hi everyone! It’s been awhile. I know I haven’t posted in several weeks, and I’ll keep the sob story short: basically, my laptop crashed and my job is killing me. Just kidding! I love my job, but it does take a lot out of me. However, I have been cooking and photographing, just not posting. Hopefully I will come back from the upcoming Christmas break (yay, two weeks off) refreshed and ready to do some more consistent blogging!

I wanted to come back with this CEiMB pick because I remember seeing it on the list awhile back and thinking that it sounded great! This week we made Broccoli & Cheddar Stuffed Potato Skins with Avocado Cream, and this recipe was hosted by Anne at Rainforest Recipes.

One of the reasons I was looking forward to this recipe is that is incorporates broccoli, something that Scott and I eat 3-4 times a week. In fact, I think it has made several appearances in the background of other recipe pictures in my posts. We enjoy broccoli, but eating it steamed with a light sprinkling of salt every time gets old.

Like several of the Ellie Krieger recipes we have made in the past, I found this one to have a lot of steps and resulted in a large pile of dirty dishes. It was worth it, though, because these potato skins were quite tasty! The only changes I made were to use real bacon instead of Canadian bacon and to add the lime zest to the avocado cream in addition to the juice.

Isn’t my prep board for the avocado cream lovely? I thought all of those beautiful shades of green deserved their own picture.

The avocado cream was very good, and I would like to use it as a substitute for traditional guacamole in the future. I also want to make the cream again with a ripe avocado – I waited until today to purchase one and all of the ones at the grocery store were quite under ripe – because my version today never really came together in the food processor.

Thanks to Anne for a great pick! I plan on adding this one to my regular rotation for some variety with my vegetable side dishes.

On another note, Miss Shelby has proven herself to be the perfect dog for a foodie owner. We have not been giving her human food at all, but when I dropped a piece of cilantro on the floor today, she snapped it right up and looked for more!

Isn’t she growing quickly? She’s so cute!

Introducing…

the newest member of the Rachel ♥s Food team:

Shelby!

Scott and I decided last week that it was time to open our home to a new puppy. We found her on the website for Red Dog Farm, a rescue facility here in Greensboro. We applied Thursday, spoke to the director that night and picked her up on Saturday.

Shelby’s story is sad – she and her litter mates were found wandering near the road after their mother was hit by a car and killed. Luckily someone out there was nice enough to pick them up and take them to the adoption facility! All seven of the puppies were eventually adopted, but Shelby was returned because the owner’s older dog did not get along with her. I’m sorry the previous owner had to give her up, but happy at the same time because we got her!

So far she is adjusting well. Shelby was very shy at first but really opened up today. She is very smart – she learned how to sit very quickly and is trying hard to let us know when she wants to go outside. We’re still working on housetraining, but for the most part she has it.

And of course, since this is a food blog after all, Shelby enjoys Purina One Puppy and an occasional Milkbone or Snausage.