If you’re grilling up some fajitas or ribs this summer, be sure to include some of this creamy dip on the menu. It will cool the burn as well as add some fresh, bright flavor.  If your avocados are still too hard the day before you want to make the dip, place the avocados and a banana in a bag and seal it.  Leave them overnight on the kitchen counter and in the morning you will have nice, soft, ripe avocados.  It really works!

I apologize in advance for not having an exact recipe for you.  Unfortunately, like pico, guacamole is not an exact science. It really is a “to taste” recipe. Here are the basics to get you started:

Guacamole

• 6-12 soft, ripe avocados depending on the size (6 large avocados)
• 2-4 plum or Roma tomatoes
• 1/4 of a purple onion, finely diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 jalapeno or serranos
• fresh cilantro
• 1 limes
• salt
• Corn tortilla chips

1. Cut the avocados in half, removing the seed and stem, and scoop the soft green and yellow flesh into a large bowl.
2. Quarter the tomatoes and scoop out the seeds then finely dice the flesh, set aside with the finely diced red onion and minced garlic.
3. Finely dice the green flesh of the peppers you are using and set aside. Serranos are hotter than jalapenos but with either one the heat is in the white seeds and ribs. I would start with just the green and add in seeds to taste.
4. Remove long stems from a bunch of cilantro, don’t worry about where the leaves connect to the stem, a little is ok. Roughly chop cilantro and set aside.
5. Lightly mash the avocado and stir in about 1/2 the tomato and onion and some peppers and cilantro. Add the juice of 1/2 lime and about 1 tsp of salt. Taste.
6. Here’s where you have to use your own judgement: add more tomato, onion, pepper or seeds, cilantro, lime juice and salt as desired until it tastes the way you’d like.
7. Serve right away, guacamole doesn’t keep long although the more lime juice you use the longer it will keep.

Here’s a trick to making your guacamole last a couple days in the fridge. Don’t let it stay exposed to the air. Once you are done with it, scoop it into an airtight container, then use a sheet of plastic wrap and press it right up against the guacamole and up the sides of the container before putting the lid on. This can help the guacamole last as many as 2-3 days. Although it will always be best freshly made. Some people swear by leaving one of the avocado pits in the guacamole. I have tried it and I am not sure it worked any better than just keeping it covered.

You’ll notice Guacamole is essentially just mashed avocado with some pico stirred in, you can definitely make it this way. We really like the flavor of red onion in guac and white onion in pico but if you have left over pico, by all means make up some guacamole with it.

Real whipped cream is such a delicious and fancy touch to any dessert. For a long time I actually thought I didn’t like whipped cream. It just didn’t have any substance to it and I didn’t like the aerated mouthfeel in combination with rich, dense desserts like ice cream or custard. I only recently realized what I didn’t like was canned whipped cream. Don’t get me wrong, I usually have a can in the fridge for impromptu Strawberry Shortcakes and Daddy and the kids like it on ice cream and other desserts. I just didn’t care for it all that much. So, the other night I decided to make our shortcakes extra special by making real whipped cream with the kids. It didn’t seem like it could be that hard and in fact it was so delightfully easy that I can’t think of having it any other way now.

Whipped Cream

• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 tbsp sugar

1. Combine all three ingredients in a bowl and using a mixer with a whisk attachment, whip until doubled in size and soft peaks form.

Soft peaks mean when you turn the mixer off and pull it out, the cream should stand up a little at that point and then fold over.

What do we make when strawberries are on sale? Strawberry Shortcake!

Strawberry Shortcake is probably the easiest “fancy” dessert you can make. That is assuming you are making it easy on yourself by purchasing the cake portion. And why not? There are plenty of delicious choices: frozen pound cake or biscuits, bakery angel food cake, or dessert/shortcake shells. When I was a kid, we used slices of pound cake. Daddy Chaos’s family uses shortcake shells. The great thing is you can keep any of these in the freezer and whenever strawberries go on sale, you’re ready to go.

Shortcake Topping

• 2 lbs ripe fresh strawberries*
• 1 cup sugar
• pinch of salt
• water

1. Wash and slice your strawberries into bite sized pieces, pile into a bowl.
2. Mix in sugar and salt, don’t be gentle you want to give them a little mash.
3. Let them sit for an hour or so, check the syrup that has formed and add a little water if you want to thin it out or make more.
4. Refrigerate until ready, will last a couple days. This is enough topping for a crowd or 2-3 nights of dessert.

*Awesome tip: use any combination of berries for this, fresh or frozen, and make a great cake or ice cream topping. Frozen mixed berries are great for this and much cheaper year round.

To construct your shortcakes just scoop topping onto cake then top with a generous dollop of whipped cream. Or shoot it with the canned stuff, then shoot some in each kid’s mouth, and on the tip of their nose.

Well, Daddy Chaos and I completed our first official cooking class.  It was a fun evening despite the fact that it wasn’t really a cooking class.  The chefs basically handed us a packet of recipes we would be preparing, gave us our ingredients and tools, and then circulated the room offering advice while we prepared our meal.  It was a little disappointing because it we were totally on our own and yet had to completely rely on the instructors for ingredients and equipment.  Their disorganization turned into our disorganization which made for a rushed, more stressful experience. 

What we didn’t care for: The ingredients were all pre-measured into small cups, cooking show style, which was fine except occasionally we would be missing something-like salt for our boiling water or oil for our dressing.  We then had to rush to find a chef we could interrupt to fetch us a tsp of salt.  Also, the recipes were for much larger servings than the four of us would eat so they automatically scaled the recipes down. Except they scaled some parts and not others, leading to confusion over ingredient amounts, with no access to measuring cups.  Our equipment was handed to us moments before we needed to use it so there were times when we were grasping for a plate or spoon that wasn’t there.  In addition, we had never made some of the items on the menu before so we didn’t exactly know what we were doing.  I would have like to have received instruction on perfectly cooking a tenderloin and ahi tuna steak.  Instead I was promised by the chefs that everything we cooked would be “edible.”  Our tenderloin was cooked for us before we got to class and our tuna steaks were overdone, as a result of having to wait in line at the grill and not knowing what a proper cooking time was.  We almost burned our couscous because we were waiting on additional ingredients before we could move to the next step.   

The good part: The bright point in the evening was the food.  It was decent and there was plenty of it.  We tried several things we hadn’t tried before, namely the tuna steaks and couscous.  I think that for the sake of experience, and confidence with our own cooking skills, it was a worthwhile evening. 

For the price, I think I will limit classes to ones where 1. we don’t already know how to do most of it and 2. they are actual instructional classes.  After our fantastic experience at Knife Skills, our expectations might have been a little high.  Also, we might try to look around at some of the other classes offered in our area to see if they might be better suited to us.