I love cooking and baking - sadly I never get enough time to do it - my work takes up most of my life and the other parts are filled with time with the boyfriend and keeping this little blog updated.
Recently I was kindly gifted a book called 'My Family Kitchen' by Sophie Thompson who is a much-celebrated, award-winning actress and the winner of Celebrity Masterchef, 2014.
The book itself is hardback (my copy is anyway) and very sturdy. I dropped it a couple of times in the kitchen and no damage. It also looks good on my bookshelf and adds to my little collection I have restarted after all these years. The layout and colour scheme of the book are well thought out and I especially like the fonts chosen. I also enjoy the little comments added my Sophie when she's explaining the steps of the recipe.
The book contains recipes from four generations and recipes from friends also. The pictures from the book were also shot in her own kitchen and not in a set which gives it that warmth and homey feel.
It was suggested to me that I recreate a recipe from the book with a Christmasy feel and so I spent a great deal of time looking through the book and trying to find a recipe that said 'Christmas' to me. I settled on an easy one (some might say its easy). I actually did two recipes but with the length of the post already I think I'm just going to present one to you all :)
Richard's Guacamole
I decided on this recipe because Christmas is a time for sharing. My parents always used to have Christmas buffets and lots of our family and friends came over. Buffets are always much easier than sit-down meals. When I think guacamole - I think nachos and they are so easy to share with people. So that's why I chose this meal (or snack you could say).
Half, de-stone and scoop out 4 avocados into the bowl.
Step 2:
Mash it with a fork (or a potato masher) until it looks like above. Finely chop 1/2 a red onion and add to the bowl too and mix.
Add a dash of tabasco, a heaped tsp of mayonnaise, 1-2 tsp sweet chilli sauce, juice of 1/2 a lime, salt and pepper and mix again.
De-seed a tomato and finely chop and add to the bowl and mix.
Voila - EAT it!
Now that I had made the guacamole. I got some nachos (cool flavoured Doritos work too), some medium salsa (you could make this yourself too) and some soured cream (again you could make this too). Added them all to a plate and ...
I just didn't want to make large batches of guacamole that would go bad before I managed to eat it all.
Let me know what you think of the food in the comments below. If your looking for a Christmas present and the person you are looking for it budding chef in the kitchen - why not try 'My Family Kitchen' - you can get it in most book stores now like WH Smith and online at Amazon HERE.
Let me know if you buy it and if you make any recipes from it too!! I
Disclosure: I was not compensated for this post, however I did receive a sample for my review. All opinions are my own and not influenced in any way.