And The Rest of the Story...

Remember the story of the wedding dogs? The wedding they attended (thru the grandchildren) took place yesterday. As the children pack up to return to their homes, dogs in tow, I learned that one dog (an extra little guy) will stay in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, for now.

Three will be going to live in Connecticut and the remaining two will take up residency in IRELAND! How cool is that? The product of a simple little crafter in Colorado, the dogs will live out their "lives" in Ireland.

I just love that. :)

And Now For Something Completely Different

I actually do other things besides sew all day. ;-)

The mister and I had a craving for guacamole, so on a recent trip to Costco, picked up a bag of avocados. And you know how that goes... it takes a few days for them to ripen and when they do - they are ripe and you'd better move fast! Well, they were definitely ripe yesterday.

Since my son works in our home office on Wednesdays I thought a little guac and chips would be a nice little "happy hour" treat at the end of the day. We even added a Scrabble game in for good measure. Of course he beat the pants off the old folks, but we had a good time anyway!

It's hard to make guacamole look attractive; it is what it is - yummy, but not too pretty! And when I bought the ingredients I misread the recipe so what you see in the photo is a yellow bell pepper, not a yellow onion. Duh. But I did have a yellow onion in the pantry, so saved the yellow pepper for salad tonight. We like our guac chunky so when you get a bite, you really get a bite; I'm sure if you like it smoother that's an option as well.

I have been using the same tired old guac recipe for years, so decided to Google a new one. This is Tyler Florence's version of guacamole and it was indeed yum! The only thing I added were tomatoes, because we like the punch of color and flavor that tomatoes add.

Tyler Florence's Guacamole
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Inactive Prep Time: 1 hour
Serves: About 4 cups

6 ripe avocados
3 limes, juiced
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, smashed then minced
2 serrano chiles
1 big handful fresh cilantro, with stems (about 1/2 cup finely chopped)
Extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper

Halve and pit the avocados; scoop out the flesh into bowl. Mash the avocados using either a fork or potato masher, leaving them a big chunky. Add remaining ingredients and fold everything together. Drizzle with olive oil, adjust seasoning with salt and pepper and it one final mix.

Lay a piece of plastic wrap directly and tightly on the surface of the guacamole (a new trick - this keeps it from turning brown!) and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Like I said I added the tomatoes; forgot to drizzle with the olive oil and didn't add pepper because the mister is allergic to it. Of course we didn't refrigerate for an hour - are you kidding? We ate it immediately. Thumbs up from all three of us.

(Oh, and P.S. - the platters in the picture? Both are hand-crafted by artisans in British Columbia! I bought the green fish platter in the quaint little village of Coombs, BC while visiting Vancouver Island last summer. I so love it - and the memories it holds... And the purple one was a gift from my Canadian SIL ~ it was made by an artisan in Nanaimo, BC - also located on the island. They're both special to me.) :)