If you put your friends into a Venn diagram, what would be the intersection? Would it be their looks or economic class? (That would be a little shallow!) Maybe it is their love of sports or the outdoors? It could be something as simple as the fact that you grew up together and you remained friends. (Or your mom has had them on a friendship retainer for the past 40+ years.)

For me, one of the biggest ways I “classify” my friends is by the food that they eat. I have a subset “A” called my picky eater friends. (Those are usually the friends I’ve had for years and I can’t dump them just because they order a burger everywhere we go!) I have the subset “B” of adventurous eaters (love these folks because you can pretty much go anywhere with them). I even have a subset “C” for just drinking a cup of coffee. (This group is awesome because they are always jacked up on caffeine.)

Recently, I have found a new subset, which I will call “V” and they would intersect with all of the subsets. It is almost weird for me to mention them on Felt Like a Foodie given my eating tendencies but they do have definite intersection points.

But how can these people be both picky and adventurous with food? Dare I say it?? These gals are VEGANS!!!! (I didn’t know if I should scream VEGAN of whisper it like a golf announcer.)

These gals are “picky” due to their dietary choices, they are super adventurous and they love coffee. Boo-yah. Instant friends!  (And just so I don’t get any vegan hate mail, I intersect you with the “picky” people too because you choose or “pick” foods that fit your lifestyle.)

Can a woman who bleeds bacon fat become friends with Vegans? (It is more like how are they friends with me because I am sure some of my food choices repulse them.) I think I like them because they take up the dauntless task every day of finding food without a face and make it interesting.

The other thing I like is that they don’t preach their veganism…they just live it. They know that I am a carnivore but have yet to feel the need to make me feel guilty about the choices I make with food.

These women make their own cheeses and have found creative alternatives for pretty much everything under the sun. Their dedication is admirable and it has made me think more of WWVD? (What would a vegan do?)

So I was out to lunch with one of them the other day and she said something about avocado toast. My first thought was “How do you eat avocado toast without bacon?” I didn’t say it because I didn’t want to prove my vegan ignorance.  (She’ll learn soon enough how ignorant I can be.)

When I got home, I started looking up articles and recipes for avocado toast.   I was amazed at the options. (This article was my favorite.)

So the other night, I thought I would make some variations of avocado toast to see what all the fuss was about and I must say I loved it. It was pretty simple to add different ingredients and make each slice taste unique.

Recipe wise, there really isn’t much to do but make sure you mash your avocado with some sort of citrus and season it properly. I made 4 big slices of toast with one avocado. I used about a quarter of a lemon per half avocado or a half of a lime per half of avocado. I think one of the keys is not to over mash your avocado. It is better to have some different textures in your mouth.

I made one with lemon juice, avocado and pickled onions.

I made another one from Bon Appetit that had tahini, avocado, limejuice, cucumbers and red pepper flakes. (This was pretty dang good.)

Another was made with lemon juice, avocado, toasted almonds and roasted cumin. (I’d do this again with either no cumin or a different spice…maybe saffron?)

And my favorite was made with limejuice, avocado and then sprinkled with the Japanese rice seasoning (Nori Komi Furikake), some togarashi (Japanese red pepper) and a small drizzle of red chili sesame oil. It was soooooo delicious!!!! (These Japanese ingredients are found in all sorts of stores these days.)

I can see why Vegans would make this part of their weekly if not daily diet because they could reinvent toast constantly and never get bored.  If you are making these toasts for vegans, make sure you use vegan bread. I didn’t even think of that component until I was done but luckily I wasn’t feeding this to anyone in that subset so no vegan values were hurt in the process.