The Darling Buds Of ... April?

See this luscious creation? This creamy, dreamy, unctuous concoction? It's my new favorite beverage. I made it for the very first time just the other day, and I was mesmerized. It took every last drop of my meager willpower to leave half for DH. And I'll be honest, quite a bit of my fascination with this drink has to do with the main ingredient that goes into it. I love surprises, and this took me by surprise. Now it's your turn to guess what this drink is made from.

Go on, you have about a minute or so to throw out your ideas. In the meantime, let me take you for a lovely walk around my neighborhood, during a gorgeous spring day. Everything is flowering. The buds are peeking out on all the trees, and the air is fragrant with some of this season's early bloomers.

My hood.

The pink tree, as I refer to it, in front of my apartment!

Ok! The wait is over! Did you guess the secret ingredient yet? Drumroll please ...

It's avocado!

Fun, huh? An avocado milkshake. And it's deeeee-friggin-licious!

It's also good for you. Avocados provide nearly 20 essential nutrients, including fiber, potassium, vitamin E, B-vitamins, and folic acid.

Vietnamese Avocado Milkshake (thanks to Wandering Chopsticks for opening my eyes to this!)

Makes 2 servings

Click here for printable recipe

Ingredients:
1 ripe avocado
1 cup ice-cubes
2 tbsp sweetened condensed milk (or more if you like)
1/3 cup skim milk (or more, if you like your milkshake runnier)

Method: Scoop out the ripe avocado flesh. Combine with the rest of the ingredients and zap it in the blender till smooth and inviting. Taste for sweetness.

Verdict: To me, this tastes like a cross between coconut water and sugarcane juice, but you can definitely distinguish the avocado flavor as it goes down your throat. Let me tell you though, after a couple of sips, you really start to appreciate it. Especially that velvety texture as it coats the inside of your mouth. And then you end up craving it for breakfast everyday, like I do. Don't you just love the color? I happen to have a thing for green drinkies, having grown up with Pakistan's national soft drink - Pakola, baby! (if you've never heard of it, Google it folks, it's awesome) I will happily be making this drink throughout the summer, since it's also beautifully refreshing.

Me thinks I shall send this recipe in to the lovely Katie over at Eat This! She's hosting the next Weekend Herb Blogging event, and since she leads a gluten-free life, I believe she'll really appreciate this milkshake.

Date Night - Part Deux

When my parents and kid brother came over from Canada to visit us over Easter weekend, DH and I got another chance for a do-over of our previous disastrous date night. We nixed the idea to give sushi another shot (seriously, is there anything worse than mediocre sushi?), and opted for this little place right in our neighborhood that I'd been meaning to try out for ages - Ibiza. I'm not going to leave you hanging till the end of this post to tell you how I felt about it, because I'm not a tease. Not today anyway! Ibiza turned out to be better than I'd hoped for. Perhaps I purposely kept my expectations low, maybe I was desperate for a night out, or maybe it was the company (we dragged my brother along, despite his protests that he didn't want to be the third wheel - but between him and DH, I was thoroughly entertained!), whatever it was, I loved it! Now let me break it down for you and explain why. Oh, and let me apologize in advance for the dark photos; I still haven't figured out how to take decent shots in a dark restaurant. If any of you fab food photographers have tips on how to do that, do tell!

Ibiza is a tapas and wine bar. Their menu was split into the traditional hot and cold tapas, and the modern hot and cold tapas. Since I've never been to Spain, I can't vouch for their authenticity, but I know for a fact that they didn't try to dumb down their menu, which a lot of ethnic places are guilty of. Of course, they had an extensive wine list, but if you're looking to see me review those, you're on the wrong blog! It's all about the food here, and the occasional non-alcoholic beverage or two. The restaurant itself was cute, albeit a bit of a tight squeeze, but the atmosphere was really buzzing. The service really friendly too. Our waitress, Tiffany, was a sweet little thing who actually seemed to like her job - which makes a huge difference in the quality of service, folks.

Roast lamb on toast with roasted tomatoes and a kickin' chimichurri sauce. We should've ordered more of these delectable babies.

Nevat goat cheese on toast with fig, walnut and truffle oil. I wish I didn't have to share this plate with anyone (note to self for next time).

Grilled baby octopus with caramelized onions. So tender, they just melted in my mouth.

Baby squid cooked in its own ink, over baguette slices. A revelation! So damn good! Turned all our teeth black, but so worth it!

Sauteed shrimp in garlic sauce. Not half bad; it was all about the sauce.

Peppers stuffed with ground lamb, with crispy chickpeas. So complex and scrumptious - these disappeared so fast, I just managed to squeeze in a shot of the last one on the plate!

Cuttlefish with pasta. Probably the least interesting dish of the night, but overall not a bad choice.

The special dessert they had that night - Chocolate fondant cake with homemade strawberry gelato. I liked it.

My brother's favorite dessert of the night - Coffee and hazelnut tart. Smoooooooooooooth.

DH had the creme catalana, which is the spanish version of a creme brulee, and it was delicious, with specks of real vanilla bean swimming around. But if you know DH, you'll know that it was done with before I had time to get my camera ready.

After dinner, the three of us took our butts over to Mamoun's Falafel in New Haven (once we made the mandatory call to check in with B and his grandparents - they seemed to be getting along like old pals, so we knew we didn't have anything to worry about), where we sat outside and smoked some gooooooood sheesha (water-pipe) and munched on a plate of crispy, freshly-made falafel. It was a great way to end the night. Too bad the sheesha gave DH a headache (pfffft. Lightweight.), but I was was only slightly giddy and definitely happy. So there you have it, dear readers. A successful date night at last!