Garlic and Cilantro Guacamole

My little Max made Mexican dinner the other night. The highlight was guacamole, since he loves avocado. Making dinner for the family was on his school list of things and chores to do at home, everybody in his classroom had to do 7 things from a list of 10, and I think that he did pretty well :-).

The best guacamole is the one my Mexican primo Alejandro makes. Actually, he makes different types, all good, but when I have to make it I have some personal preferences:

1 I prefer smooth to chunky

2 I like it green, no tomatoes

3 I prefer garlic to onion

4 I don't like it spicy, I want to taste the avocado, not the chili.

Fussy ehhhh!!! So I gave Max all the ingredients for a garlic and cilantro smooth guacamole.

He had to mush (with a pestle) 5 small avocado with the juice of half a lemon. Then he added the garlic, squeezed (that was hard work!!!)

Finally he chopped the cilantro in my hollow herb chopping board (it comes with a curved herb knife which is quite easy to use). He likes doing that. He added the salt, to taste, and that took a while (he was adding about a grain at the time, just to be safe).

Taaaa Daaa!!! It was lovely! It was part of a roll your own tortilla meal: warm tortilla, refried beans (these came from a can, just had to re-heat them) sliced tomatoes, grated cheese, guacamole and chili sauce (from a bottle). I prepared it all, and we all enjoyed it.

How to make Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum), and Sweet New Zealand

Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum) Before I start I would like to say that I don't have a sugar thermometer, essential if you are really into confectionery, and that I didn't use much sugar for these Turkish delights. Many recipes use much more sugar, and it is not that I wanted to make a low sugar treat here (it is still pretty sweet), it is just that making it at home really makes me realize how much sugar there is already in my diet, and if I can have something with a little less... well, why not! This method is 'home friendly' i.e. these can be made at home with very little effort and equipment, and the recipe comes from my book Sweet As... where I also have the recipe for lavender and orange blossom Turkish Delights. Ingredients 1 l water 300 g sugar 2 tbsp lemon juice 100 g cornflour 1 tbsp frozen raspberries 1 tbsp rose water icing sugar (very little) and cornflour (lots) to dust. In a pot put hal...

Mezze Maniche with Mushroom Cream Sauce

Since I had some left over mushroom sauce from yesterday's dish , today I made some pasta. I heard from other bloggers about the Garofalo pasta brand, in NZ I could only find it in one shop, and it was too expensive even to consider, so I thought that I should try it while I am in Italy. I choose mezze maniche for this dish. Mezze maniche with mushrooms I cooked the mezze maniche al dente. In the meantime I warmed up the pan with the left-over mushrooms and added 250 ml of cream. Then I added some freshly chopped Italian parsley and some freshly ground pepper. I drained the mezze maniche and passed them in the pan with the mushroom and cream sauce. They tasted great! Photos by Alessandra Zecchini©

Paccheri with tomato, parsley and garlic.

Paccheri are hollow pasta tubes that look like rigatoni or tortiglioni, but with a difference: the paccheri tubes flatten once they are cooked. Usually the have very rich sauces, but I am one for 'less is more' these days, and so here I just warmed up a ready made Italian tomato passata ( a good one ). Once the passata was hot I added some salt, extra virgin olive oil and finely chopped Italian parsley with garlic. These days I am chopping a lot of parsley and garlic together, it is too early for basil, and parsley taste really good in Italy! Also, I like the idea of having a cooked sauce but with raw herbs and garlic in it: the taste changes completely. Simple but really effective!!! If you are not vegan you can add some ricotta to this. Photos by Alessandra Zecchini©

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