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,

AVOCADO picture

I admired this painting for so long. Isn't it beautiful? I love it! I love the way avocados look when you first cut them open, the smooth limey green fruit against the dark bumpy textured skin, with the mahogany colored seed in the middle. My good friend Karin Nelson painted this with oils. She is so talented AND generous. She gave this to me! It fits perfectly in my kitchen/living room area. I jokingly told her that I needed a tomato, onion and a lime so I could have wall Guac!

Speaking of guacamole, it was brought to my attention that my Cobb Guacamole recipe was missing something very important in the ingredient list. Have I told you I need an editor? I have been feeling like a numb skull, wondering how many of you made the Cobb Guac with out the much needed lemon......nightmares, tossing and turning, screaming out in the night. NOOOOO lemons AAhhhhhhuGH! Lemon Demonssss......

I felt the need to RE-share the Cobb Guacamole this time with all the ingredients.

printable recipe

3 avocados pitted, and diced small

1 small sweet onion diced medium

1 large Roma tomato(2 if small) diced

1 cup canned corn(sweet no salt added type)drained

dressing

1 clove garlic minced

6 leaves fresh basil finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt

1 lemon juiced or 1/4 cup lemon juice

a dash of Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon sugar

the good stuff

1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese

4 slices thick cut bacon fried and chopped into small pieces

Mix avocados, onion, corn, and tomato together in a medium sized bowl. Whisk the dressing ingredients together. Pour over the avocado mixture and mix around squishing the avocados a little as you do. When ready to serve sprinkle your cheese and chopped bacon on top. Serve with chips, on top of grilled chicken or over a bed of lettuce.

Phwew! I feel better now. If you are a crazed bacon and blue cheese lover like myself, you are going to go nuts over this stuff!

If you are in need of a beautiful painting for your home have a look at Karin's blog.

Long live GUACamole!

HEART of palm salad

Last week we spent a week on the beach at a cottage on Lake Michigan, the "BIG" lake, "THE lake". If you are a Michigander from the West side, and someone says they are going to "the lake", you know they mean Lake Michigan. There are a bAzillion lakes in this state....well maybe a half a bazillion...anyway...

We stayed on the mother of lakes. Have you ever been somewhere and it reminds you of someplace else you've been. The smell.....or just something about it. A couple years back we took our kiddos and traveled to Costa Rica for two weeks on the beach. It was magnifee-cO!

Paradise! Hanging on the beach last week reminded me of the fresh produce and simple fresh food we had in Costa Rica. It was the first place I ever partook of hearts of palm. How do I describe hearts of palm.....hmmm...pickley...kinda, fresh...yummy....definetly. I had to google hearts of palm to figure out exactly what they are....it really is the heart of palm trees...the middle of the new palm tree shoots, baby palm hearts... I am just glad that it had nothing to do with this guy....

YIKers, he scared the bajeebers out of my littlest son....scared the hearts of palm right out of him. These dudes are everywhere down there...they won't hurt you...but they sure is OOOgly.

So last week I whipped us up a salad, that included palm hearts.

SIMPLE, easy, you can do it in 2 minutes flat. The hardest thing might just be finding the palm hearts. I found them in my grocery store next to the canned artichoke hearts....in the heart section of your local grocery store. Or Costco has these nice big jars enough to make a salad or two and have some left for snacking.

Here is what you will need:

limes

tomatoes

avocados

hearts of palm

fresh ground pepper

course salt or kosher salt

There it is THE jar of palm hearts the star of todays show!

There is no real recipe....just cut up your tomatoes, avocados, and hearts up in to nice sized chunks. I do equal amounts...nice proportions....just like to be fair. Wouldn't want the maters getting there feelings hurt or anything. By the way I prefer roma tomatoes. Just in case you were wondering... Then juice your lime or limes (or really any citrus is fabulous...I really prefer orange, but I didn't have one handy) over the motley crew and then give it a good crack of pepper and a generous shake of salt and there you have it!!!

Here is how we had it last week. All fancy...it was part of our appetizer course, before the shrimp boil, thus the newspaper table cloth..

You can pretend that you are in paradise while you nibble on you salad.

Enjoy!

cobb GUACamole

As in Cobb Salad. Big D mentioned to me she saw a guacamole on the show "The Best Thing I Ever Ate", that had blue cheese and bacon in it. I have NOT been able to get my mind off it. I have been obsessed with it. Salivating more than my golden retriever......

When Big D mentioned it too me... I said, "OOOO Yummy" and she said "oh yeh kinda like a Cobb Salad thing".

I did the major google recipe search...searched all my favorite recipe sites...no one had the bacon blue cheese guac. I couldn't find it on the Food Network site either....you will probably go right there and find it....because that is so typical. I can't find it...someone else looks and alas there it is....

Anyway....I came up with my own version. Tested it out on some very adventurous girlfriends....I must add the husband were COMPLETE and utter wimps and would not go near it. What's up with that? Too macho for blue cheese? Hey there is bacon in here dudes. Ah forget um, all the more for us.

I think they liked it because we finished off a whole family sized bag of Scoops chips!

Here's what you will need.

Cobb Guac

printable recipe

3 avocados

1 small sweet onion diced medium

1 large roma tomato (2 if small) diced

1 cup canned corn (sweet no salt added type) drained

dressing

1 clove garlic minced

6 leaves fresh basil finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

fresh ground pepper as much as you like

a dash of Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon sugar

the good stuff

1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese

4 slices thick cut bacon fried up crispy

1. Mix the avocado, onion, corn and tomato together in medium sized bowl

2. Whisk the dressing ingredients together. Pour over the avocados and mix around squishing the avocados a little as you do.

3. Just before serving sprinkle blue cheese on top and then sprinkle crumbled bacon and VOILA!

I realize that I left out the egg.....that's my least favorite part of the Cobb Salad. So I did that on purpose, and it just didn't seem to jive with my dip.

This is FABULOUS when you take some romaine lettuce and slice up a piece of grilled chicken lay it on top of the lettuce and then put a extremely generous dollop of Cobb Guacamole on top.

OR you can just sit your butt in a lawn chair with a bag of tortilla chips and the guac and go to town.

Here it is coming straight for my pie hole........YUM!

Enjoy!

mommy MEAL

Over the past 16 years I have gotten used to alone time in the evening. And I kinda like it at night when all the kids are in bed and Kenny is still at work, and it's just my time to do my own thang.

Life with an ER doctor or any doctor for that matter, is unpredictable. I have learned that if it is a day that Kenny has to work, then I pretend he is unattainable that day. If he is suppose to get out at 4 then I think 6 (and then sometimes its 7 or 8) He never, ever can just walk out of the ER. "Oh, sorry Mr. Lacerated Head, and Johnnie Broken Femur but my kids have a soccer game, gotta go. And Mrs. Puking Your Guts out you are just going to have to deal with it. " Nope you stay until the last stitch is stitched and for the most part all the tests have come in. I never even talk to him when he is at work, unless it is an emergency.

When I had three wee ones in diapers this made for some loooooong days.

I think that is when I really started my mommy meal ritual. When the kids were little and it would have been a waste to fix a big meal for them, and me. Now, fifty percent of the time when Ken is at work I will fix a regular meal. The other fifty percent the kids have grilled cheese or what ever is easy and THEN when they go to bed it is MOMMY MEAL time.

Which I realize, the after 9pm eating, has most likely significantly played a part in the donut around my middle.

I usually have some sort of chips and cheese or quesadilla. "Napoleon! Just make yourself a dang quesa-dilluh!"

Or a glass of Chardonnay and cheese and crackers....with all kinds of yummy stinky oohy-gooey cheeses, that NO one else in this house will eat.

But my favorite is.....

drum roll pleeeease....

rat a tat a tat a tat, rat a tat a tat a tat, rat a tat a tat a tat....

GREEK GUACAMOLE!

HEAVENS to mercatroid! This is the best dip on the face of the earth! I first had it at a Greek Feast put on by friend of mine...who is you guessed it Greek. The only downside, or I guess you could look at it as an upside depending on your mood, is that it gives you horrible garlic and onion breath. So if you want the hubby to back off in the bedroom make yourself a bowl of Greek Guac before bed and it is nightie night sleep tight for you. Unless of course he has a cold or pewtrid mouth odors have no effect on him.

Yes, it is a good night when I can plant my butt in front of the T.V., little Food Network, with a bowl of this stuff and a bag of the Kirkland brand organic tortilla chips and have me a FEAST! (I love those chips Costco did not pay me to spell it out for you, but I would be willing to recieve a lifetime of free chips, if they wanted to give them to me)


So I guess you want the recipe...

First, how about a saliva stimulating picture...

Oh YAY Baby! That is the good stuff. Big chunks of tomato, onion, avocado. This is also awesome on top of a hamburger or a grilled chicken sandwich or as a side with any Mexican meal or Greek meal. OK you could just about eat this anywhere anytime, well.....maybe not with Chinese food.

GREEK GUACAMOLE

printable recipe
(recipe shared with me by Kristy Buck...thanks friend)
2 cloves garlic, peeled, and chopped finely
1/2 cup Wishbone Italian Dressing
Juice of one lime
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped (remove stems)
4 medium tomatoes diced in large chunks ( I like roma tomatoes best)
1/2 medium red onion, diced in medium chunks
3 or 4 medium avocados (should be slightly firm for best results, not too ripe)
1 cup feta cheese drained and crumbled
optional: 1cup of black olives drained and sliced


1. combine garlic, dresssing, lime juice, cumin and cilantro in a bowl, whisk together. set aside



2. In a medium sized bowl combine tomatoes, avocado, and onions (and olives if you like)



3. now pour the dressing over the vegi's mix well. top with feta cheese



This is best if you give it at least an hour before diggin' in, but if you must then GO for it my friend just dig right in.

Serves 8-10 (thats what the recipe says....um this really serves one mom 2 to 3 nights)







You want the onion, tomato, and avocado to be in chunks, not smooshed up or diced too small. This is a very chunky guac. So take your knife and slice a grid in your avocado.


Then take a spoon and scoop out the chunks they will fall right out perfectly in your bowl....



like this. Voila..chunks of avocado mag-nee-freeak!



As you can see I did not have red onion on hand, so a sweet vidalia onion worked just fine too. And I never have put the olives in. I like olives just fine I just have felt the need to add them, so they have stayed out of my "Mommy meal".

This is a meal fit for a mom, simple, a little fancy...hey crumbling cheese can be deemed as fancy....and just down right dee-lish.

I hope you enjoy!

luvYA!