Pico de Gallo and Guacamole

I told you I had a few things that I would throw at you before I move. Guacamole has to be one of the most frequently requested recipes that I make. I have posted a guacamole recipe or two, but I have never put this simple, fresh, limey, and I guess I could also say traditional guacamole to the page. There is a catch.....you can't make guacamole with out first making pico de gallo. Did I hear someone say "yes you can"? Well, whatever...this momma say, "you can't". Not if you want yourself some really good guacamole. And hey a little pico on the side never hurt anyone did it?

Get out your best choppin' up knife, a cutting board, and get prepared to chop.

It's best for the chip and for distribution of the flavors if you are careful to chop all your vegetables small. Not chunky. Small. Not minced. Just small...itsy bitsy.

Same for the tomatoes. First cut in half.

Then slice through again lengthwise, then slice into thin strips, all the while keeping the tomato together. This takes a sharp knife. Dull knifes are the DEVIL. Then slice the tomato through again crosswise and there you have it perfect, itsy bitsy diced tomaters!

Traditionally pico de gallo or fresh salsa is simply tomatoes, onions, jalapeno, cilantro and lime, but I have this love affair with red bell peppers that I cannot shake. I love him. Red Bell pepper come to momma....I know I'm playing with fire. Let's let this be our secret. I'm going to use just half of him this time. Slice in half, remove the white foamy membrane and seeds, cut in long thin strips and then cut again crosswise for those itsy bitsy pepper pieces.

Now for the hot one. Jalapeno. I use one whole jalapeno pepper, if you like less heat only use a half, if you like more heat then bring it on brother, use more!

Chop off the stem.

You may want to wear plastic gloves while working with jalapenos or any pepper with heat. If you choose not to wear some sort of cooking glove, then I suggested not rubbing your eyes or picking your nose at any time during or after the jalapeno chopping process. I would actually suggest that you refrain from nose picking entirely while cooking, but that's just my opinion. (I've got a funny booger recipe that I will have to share with you sometime...now is not the time, but I promise someday I will share.)

Slice in half, revealing the seeds.

Using your sharp knife, run the tip of the knife underneath the seeds. Removing them and the white membrane in one quick slice.

Voila!

Now for the mincing. Slice pepper into very thin strips, then take knife and chop like a maniac. Chop, chop, chop, chop don't stop until you have very tiny micro bits of jalapeno pepper.

You will need some of this. Morton Nature's Seasoning is my favorite seasoning....I think I've said that before. I use it everyday. It's a perfect salty seasoning blend. Get yourself some.

As you chop your vegetables place them in a bowl, sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of the seasoning salt.

The most tedious task of this whole recipe, for me anyway, is the cleaning and de-stemming of the cilantro. Run your Cilantro through a salad spinner, getting it nice and clean. Or if you don't have one of those doo-hickeys then run cilantro under cold water and lay out on paper towels to dry. Remove leaves from stems. You will need a good handful or approximately 1/3 cup cilantro, roughly chopped.

Let it get all cozy with the other ingredients, give the cilantro a toss.

That looks fabulous, does it not??? But there is one more ingredient that is not to be forgotten.

THE LIME.

Roll, roll, roll your lime...gently on the table...give it a squish with your palm, and cut through the.....

meeeedle.

Ah the songs of my youth! Seriously if you roll the lime along the counter with some pressure, it will loosen the juices on the inside and make it easer to juice. If you have a juicer well then great, if not you can join me in my fork juicing method.

Fork juicing method 101: After rolling, and cutting in half, hold one half of the citrus in the palm of your less dominant hand, ram the fork into the middle of the citrus....

Squeeze hard while twisting the fork. Squeeze, twist....squeeze, twist....the juice will run flow freely from the citrus. It's marvelously simple.

Toss the chopped vegetables with the lime juice. Take tortilla chip in a pincer grip, scoop some pico on the chip, and enjoy!

Oh but wait....now you need to make Guacamole! Have you ever heard this song? It makes me giggle.

Look at that. It takes my breath away. The color. I really need to paint a room in my house this color. I'll get right on that one...NOT. I hate to paint walls. I leave that up to the professionals.

Slice avocado in half. Whack your very sharp knife into the pit, and give a tiny twist to remove.

Now cut vertically and horizontally, like so, using the tip of your knife, with out cutting through the skin.

If you are civilized you can take a spoon and gracefully scoop out the flesh of the avocado, or if you are sufficiently uncivilized like myself you can give the avocado half a squeeze and squish it's innards out into a bowl.

Repeat the roll, roll, roll of the lime. Squeeze one entire lime into the avocados. I think that more lime is better, so feel free to add another half of a lime, or more. Always taste as you go. As they say the proof is in the puddin' or in this case the quac.

Mash the lime into the avocados with the back of a fork.

Add 1 cup of the pico de gallo that you just made.

Give it a stir. There you have it heaven in a bowl.

Pico de Gallo & Guacamole

printable recipe

Pico

4 Roma Tomatoes, diced

1 medium sweet Onion, diced

1/2 Red Bell Pepper, diced

1 Jalapeno Pepper, minced

1 hand full fresh Cilantro leaves rough chopped, or 1/3 cup chopped

1 teaspoon Mortons Nature's Seasoning Salt

1 Lime, juiced

Guac

4 ripe Avacodos

1 Lime, juiced

1 cup Pico de Gallo

What's the saying? "It ain't over till the fat lady sings." No that's not it. "All is fair in love an war." "A monkey in silk is a monkey no less." "Great minds think alike." No that's not it either. Hmmm..."what's good for the goose is good for the gander". OO OO OO I got it....

"It's not a party with out some GuacaMoleee, bay-beh."!

Alls well that ends well,

Sausage Breakfast Strata perfect for Easter Breakfast

Everyone is all a buzz about what they are serving for Easter dinner. I feel like a loser. Because I am not lifting a finger this Easter. Last week I made reservations for our whole family, plus house guests to go out for dinner. Thursday and Friday I will be shoulder deep in making cinnamon rolls for a fundraiser for The Friends of Portage Lake Cookbook. Also our much anticipated house guests will be arriving Friday night before Easter, so I want to be able to enjoy them and not be in the kitchen the whole weekend.

I himm'd I hawd, I waxed I wained, I picked the phone up, I put it down. Mothers Day is one thing....but there is just something ingrained in me that says you don't go out to dinner on Easter. Not that I am judging anyone...I am most definitely not! It's just the way I was raised...it's in my blood to fix ginormous, explode your stomach meals on holidays.

But this year I said, "I CAINT DO IT!"

I think it's good to know your limits. Good for you and good for your fam-ba-lie!

And your house guests that you don't want to make Whacko the instant they arrive. We still have cookies to bake and eggs to decorate, for heavens sakes!

In fact I might just have to make this Breakfast Strata so we have something to tide us over until our dinner buffet of ham, roast beast, and leg-O-lamb, plus pasta station, omelet station, and a hot chocolate bar...uh HUH...that's what I'm talkin' bout! I may never make Easter Dinner again!

This Sausage Breakfast Strata is my boys favorite! The best thing about this strata is that you put it together the night before, and then pop it in your oven in the morning and Voila! You have a cheesy, hearty breakfast fit for a king! Literally on Easter this would be fit for the King of Kings!

What you will need for:

Sausage Breakfast Strata

printable recipe

1 pound Breakfast Sausage

12 eggs

2 cups milk

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

3 cups shredded Cheddar Cheese

12 slices of white bread

4 tablespoons of butter, softened

Brown the Breakfast Sausage in a skillet and set aside.

Crack all 12 eggs into a bowl, add milk, salt, and pepper.

Give that a good whisking.

Use the softened butter to butter one side of 6 of the slices of bread, then lay them butter side down into the 9x13 dish.

Sprinkle half of the sausage over first bread layer.

Sprinkle half the cheese...this is a hard one people I know, sprinkling takes a skilled hand, but the more you sprinkle the easier it gets. I assure you.

Place the last six slices of bread on top of the sausage and cheese layer. I used Texas toast, regular white bread slices work just as good. If you do use the Texas cut, press it down. Give it a little squish. Then repeat with the sausage and cheese sprinkling, use all the cheese and sausage up.

Now you can return to the whisked eggs. Pour eggs evenly over the Strata...did you know strata means layers? Yes-sir-ee. Strata..."Struh-tah". If you say it like that it sounds real fancy.

Let the eggs, bubble down through the layers.

Now tightly cover with plastic wrap place it in your refrigerator over night.

When you are ready to bake it, you will need 1 hour, so leave yourself time. Remove from fridge, remove plastic wrap (I figure you know these simple steps, but I have had people ask, so I am just giving it to you step by step, taking nothing for granted here Folks.) preheat oven to 350 degrees, when up to heat place Strata in and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. My experience has been closer to the 1 hour mark, especially if you use the thicker bread.

Easy! Simple! Hearty! Hey maybe you can pull this one out on Fathers Day if you don't use it this Sunday.

I've found are some great Easter Treats and Ideas, I thought I'd share with you. Go check these creative and talented ladies out, they have no idea I am sending you their way, so take a minute and say Howdy, leave them some love in their comments......but please come back to the slacker blog.

The Italian Dish ~ Easter Bread beware it's gorgeous!

Quit Eating Out ~ Easter treats with meaning for your kiddos!

The Reluctant Entertainer, Sandy has all sorts of good Eastery stuff on her site.

Kitchen Belleicious ~ OK these look amazing!

Red Letter Words ~ Many beautiful things here to inspire.

Ezra Pound Cake ~ Cute, easy chocolate goodies.

a Holy experience ~ Ann Voskamp has beautiful poetry, insights, and a recipe for lamb.

I LUV ya! More than my Cadbury Mini Eggs...and that's ALOT!

mini WEDGE salad

I love a Wedge Salad. It's a mountain of cool, crisp, goodness. Too often however if I order one in a restaurant it's just plain too much salad! I either eat it all and then am overly full when my meal comes, or I end up leaving half a salad on my plate...feeling wasteful.

I wanted to do a Wedge Salad for my dinner party last Friday night. My dilemma was 1.) I didn't want it to be too much salad for everyone, and 2.) I didn't have enough plates or room on my counter to plate up each salad individually. What to do?

Problem solved!!

The MINI Wedge Salad.

This is what you will need for 6 salads:

mini Wedge Salad
6~ 5" wooden skewers
1 head of iceberg lettuce
1 quart of cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup crumbled bacon
1/2 cup blue cheese crumbles
Homemade Ranch Salad Dressing (printable recipe) or
Blue Cheese Salad Dressing (printable recipe)

Chances are you have seen this salad done like this before...I haven't recreate the wheel or anything, but I received so many compliments on the presentation I thought I'd better share!


The skewer is the key to success. If you cannot find 5 inch skewers then you can cut the longer one down to size.


Trim up the head of iceberg lettuce. Removing the outer leaves, and cutting off the bottom stem.

Now set lettuce flat and cut in half.

Then cut each half into three pieces.

Flip them over and you have perfect little lettuce towers.

Wash cherry tomatoes, and place two or three on a skewer, like so.

Now stick the skewer through the wedge, securing all the layers together.

Place them here and there on a platter. Leaving an inch or two of the skewer sticking out made it easy for my guests to pick it right up and place it on their plates.

This salad was easy to make ahead, I just covered it with dampened paper towels to keep the lettuce fresh and crisp.

Just before serving I sprinkled bacon crumbles over the top then served it with P-Dubs homemade Ranch Salad Dressing and a side of Blue Cheese for people to use as they saw fit.

I think this is going to be my new goto salad. Especially for summer picnics and grill parties.

Enjoy!