Guacamole

Yesterday I took my youngest grocery shopping with me. I usually do this all alone while I am waiting for my eldest to finish her gymnastics training. I am so used to doing it alone, which  makes it difficult to do it any other way. I get so distracted by the company and they get me to buy all kinds of things that I don't want and cause me to forget half of what I do want.

Well yesterday I was made to buy avocados and tortilla chips. The demands were very clear: "Can we have guacamole for dinner?" There were other demands made like "Can we have salad with pomegranate? Can we have Oreos? Can we have Jaffa cakes?" but only some of them were granted, including the guacamole.

We love the stuff, and I am not sure why I have never made it in Sri Lanka given that avocados are so cheap and good and all the ingredients are available. It either is because I don't have the recipe with me (no more excuses now) or due to the lack of chips to dip. A few years ago I had guacamole in Arugam Bay and they served it with papadum which is a brilliant idea (might be best to bake them though instead of frying!).

Preparation time: 30 minutes; Makes a big bowl

Ingredients:

1	Onion
2-3	Garlic cloves
2.5 cm	Ginger root
4	Haas Avocados (about 2 Sri Lankan avocados)
2	Limes, juice and grated rind
4 tbsp	Coriander leaves (cilantro)
2 tsp	Ground coriander
2 tsp	Ground cumin
1 tsp	Chili powder
2	Ripe tomatoes, diced
1/2 tsp	Salt (to taste)

Method:

So there are two ways to make this. You can either have the chunky variety or the smooth variety. We usually go for chunky.

If you want to go for smooth just put the onion, garlic and ginger into your food processor and pulse. Then put in everything else except the tomatoes and pulse until smooth. Stir in the tomatoes and serve!

You might consider chunky to be a bit more time consuming but you save on cleaning the food processor!

So I first put the avocado in a bowl and smash them up to the size that we like. Then grate my ginger and garlic into the bowl. The onion I dice finely and add that together with all the other ingredients.

You can adjust the spices as you like and I was very tempted to add some finely chopped green chili but I didn't have time. If your tomatoes are watery dice them, let them sit for a few minutes and drain off the water. The tastier your avocados and tomatoes are the better your guacamole will taste.

As you probably all know avocados turn brown very quickly. To keep your guacamole a bit longer you need to stop the surface coming in contact with the air. To do this I take some cling wrap and press it down onto the surface of the mixture making sure to press any air bubbles out. Then to be extra careful I put another layer of cling wrap on top. The guacamole should be chilled before using so pop it back in the fridge until you need it. In my house it never goes back into the fridge (unless we are having visitors) but straight into some warm tummy's!!!

This is half the recipe

Pasta with zucchini, mushrooms and sun dried tomatoes

My mother-in-law arrived today to visit and cleaned up the kitchen after dinner 😁 leaving me with a bit of time before getting to bed to finish this blog post. This recipe was totally inspired by some vegetables that were lying around the house that had to be used up. My family insisted it be repeated! It is quite good and I'm really proud when I make something up all on my own and the family likes it. Makes me feel so good. I hope you enjoy it too.

Preparation time: 45 minutes; serves 6 - 8 (figure out how many it will serve based on your usual pasta consumption)

Ingredients:

600 g	Mushrooms
2	Zucchini, medium
500 g	Macaroni, dried
1/4 cup	Chopped dried tomatoes (around 4 large ones)
1/4 cup	Chopped cilantro
4 small sprigs	Oregano
50 g	Butter
250 ml	Whipping cream
2 tbsp.	Thyme infused oil (or oil plus a few sprigs of thyme)
2 tbsp.	Olive oil (if necessary)
1/4 cup	Grated parmesan
1 tsp.	Salt (to taste)

Method:
The first thing I did was to put the water to boil to make the macaroni. While waiting for the water to boil I took the opportunity to wash and chop my vegetables. Interrupting the washing in order to put the pasta in the pot and once again to take them out once cooked. I am horrible with cooking pasta so I always follow the directions on the packet. I always set my timer for the pasta once the water has returned to the boil, otherwise they seem so not done. Al dente is fine but crunchy is not happening. Although maybe Italians like their pasta crunchy! When we were in Rome this spring our host recommended a local restaurant to us. The pasta was so crunchy that we couldn't eat it. We were thankful that the portions were small (although the price was not) so we didn't have to waste too much.

Finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes with some oregano fresh from my garden 

When I made this I purposely cut the vegetables into large chunks so that we could actually taste the vegetables. The sun dried tomatoes were finely chopped since their taste is so intense. Likewise the cilantro and oregano.

I happened to have some thyme and lemon flavoured oil and I used this to fry the zucchini. Fried over high heat until golden. Once I run out of this oil I will just sprinkle the zucchini with fresh thyme. I have a large patch now in my garden.

I removed the zucchini from the pan and put them into a large bowl and threw in the mushrooms into the hot pan adding a bit of olive oil (you might not need any oil to fry the mushrooms and this is okay). This were also fried over high heat, continuously stirring. I think that the high heat helped seal the juices into the vegetables and by cooking them separately neither was was over cooked and each preserved their own flavour. A bit of caramelization just added to the taste.

Now that the mushrooms were cooked I turned them into the bowl with the zucchini and added the chopped tomatoes.

To complete the sauce melt the butter  over medium heat and once the butter has melted add the whipping cream. Keep stirring until the two ingredients are well combined. Make sure the sauce does not boil, simmering is okay. Then just add the vegetables, reheat . 

Add the macaroni or what ever pasta you are using. I like something tubular so that the sauce goes inside and gets stuck there!

Finally I took the pan off the heat and mixed in the salt, cilantro and oregano leaves. As always our kids have to have fresh Parmesan sprinkled on top. With them its usually the more the better (below is my plate!).