Avacado / Guacamole Sandwich

Summer is almost on full swing here which for me is quite hectic and  I hardly get time for elaborate cooking, so to make my life easier I started waking up early ( thanks for the early sunrise ) and finish of my days cooking in the morning so I can spend more time in playgrounds and park  in the evening without worrying about cooking dinner, but there are some days when I dont cook in the morning and S comes back home home from work with a very hungry tummy, so just to keep his hunger on bay until I finish my cooking I make some healthy quick snacks for him  which gives me ample time to do the rest of my cooking :) Like most of you know Guacamole is a famous Mexican dip made from Avacado which is perfect with some Tortilla chips, but I like to have  Guacamole as a filling for sandwich which tastes delicious and even my lil one loves this to the core and  he likes to eat  this as his dinner  :)

Ingredients( makes 6 traingle sandwiches )

For Guacamole

Avacado - 2 

Red onion - 1 small ( finely chopped )

Tomato - 1/2 ( finely chopped )

Lemon juice - 1 tbs

Salt

Pepper

Coriander leaves - (finely chopped )

For sandwich

Bread - 6 slices

Butter ( optional)

Method

• Cut the Avacado into two, remove the stone and scoop out the flesh to a bowl.
• Mash the avacado with a spoon and add chopped onions, chopped tomatoes, lemon juice, salt, pepper, coriander leaves and mix. Your Guacamole dip is ready.
• Spread butter(if using ) on your bread ( I like to toast my bread ) and spread the guacamole evenly on one side of the bread. Place the second slice on top and cut it into half ( triangles)  with a sharp knife.
• Serve immediately.

Black forest cake, a guest post for Priya

Do u all remember a beautiful pinwheel cookie which appeared on my blog sometime back, it  was a guest post by  my dear blogger friend Priya who blogs at Cook Like Priya. When I requested  her to do a guest post here she gave me the very best so when she asked me the same I had to think a lot to come up with something special, so it took a long time and finally I came up with this  Black forest cake.

Priya and I share a special friendship and I was really lucky to meet her in person when she came for Bloggers buzz in London. Ever since we have been catching up every now and then through phone calls and mails and the real bummer was when she has moved back to India. I really wish she still lived here. She is a talented blogger and she has lots of  South Indian specials in her blog as well as some classic bakes. I myself has tried her Raw mango rice and we all loved it. So if are looking for some typical South Indian food, do check out her blog.

Talking about Black forest cake, I have tried black forest cake quite a few times and expect one time, all the  other time cake came out soo well and it was a real treat. So if you are planning to make this I would advice you to be a bit careful with folding because if you over do the folding you might end up with a bread like cake due to the formation of Gluten, especially while making a genoise sponge ( the one I made for this recipe ), so always be careful not to overfold and  if you get it right I assure you that it will be an amazing cake and one of the best black forest cake you can make. I am telling you this because I have tried few other black forest recipes and have even posted 2 different recipes for black forest cake  in my blog which you can find here and here but those two were not as delicious as this one. Head over to her blog for the recipe and for our chit chat session :)

Strawberry Jam and some pictures of Strawberry picking !

Every summer we look forward to one thing in particular which is strawberry picking at our nearby farm. We have been doing it for the past 3 years and its a great fun thing to do with family. Acres of farm with fresh strawberries, rasberries, blackberries, gooseberies, and fresh vegetables like carrot, spinach, cauilflower, broccoli and many more things. Every year when I go there I go crazy seeing all fresh fruit and vegetables and I pick and pick and pick and come back home with a truck load of fruits and veggies. Only when I get back  home I think  " how on earth am I going to store them "  ! We somehow try and eat most of the fruits without storing them in fridge but  storing vegetables in my small fridge has been a challenge and  I end up leaving  few veggies at room tempertaure  for 2-3 days till I find room for them  in the fridge. 

This year has been no different  and I ended up picking a lot, but I have to say it was not as bad as last year. See, I am getting better ! But still I picked nearly 3.5  kilos of strawberry and while picking it, I  must have ate 1/4  kilo from the farm.They say we have to pay for it first before eating  but resisting the red coloured fruits while picking is almost impossible and when I looked around almost everyone who was picking was gobbling the Strawberries ! Coming to the point, making jam has been in my" to do"  list since a long time and strawberry jam is my favourite so this time I knew atleast half a kilo strawberry is going to used in jam making which by the way I did make  the same day. Jam tasted delicious almost like my favourite brand of jam. Making a jam from something you picked and enjoying it a slice of toasted bread is a priceless feeling. If this can  give such a good feeling, I  wonder how it would be if I made jam from starwberries which  I planted :)

Broccoli farm

Add caption

Ingredients

Strawberries - 700 gm

Sugar - 500 gm

Lime juice - from one lemon

Method 

•  Wash the strawberries and pat it dry.
• Place the stawberries in a heavy bottomed pan and mash them lightly  with a spoon or fork,leaving few big pieces.
• Add sugar, limejuice and mix.
• Place the pan on a medium high heat  till the sugar dissolves, cook the strawberries for 10-15 minutes stirring continously.When its almost the setting point take a cold plate(keep it in freezer for 5 minutes) and add a little of jam to the cold plate and place it back to freezer for 1-2 minutes. Take it out and when you draw a line it should leave a trail.

• Allow it cool down to room temperature and store the jam in a sterilised bottle.