My perfect summer snackin' plate... Pico, Guac, & Tortilla Chips

I anticipate mid-August every year...waiting for the glorious globes of summer tomatoes to be hot & juicy and in proper chin-dribbling mode.  I love to just cut some up and sprinkle them with sea salt...close my eyes and commence joy-making.  Know what I also look forward to?  THE freshest, most addicting, most flavor-laden salsas, picos, and guacs of the year.  So, after nearly a year of toe-tapping, finger-wiggling anticipation- the time has finally arrived!

Everybody's got their own versions...labeled 'the best ever' and 'my favorite'.  I have no doubt that those labels are fitting.  But as long as everything is at its glory...anybody's can garner those labels.  This is how I make them...just a guide...I use what I have...and so should you!

Pico de Gallo

 Use all of the ingredients in whatever proportion you prefer and/or have available

ripe, juicy garden tomatoes of any sort

fresh jalapeños or serranos or any hot chile you prefer

onion

garlic

salt

freshly squeezed lime juice

cilantro

Chop the tomatoes.  Small dice the chile and onion.  Mince the garlic.  Toss them all together in a bowl.  Sprinkle on a little salt.  Squeeze the lime over the whole thing.  Toss in a fair amount of chopped cilantro.  Mix everything together...taste. Adjust any ingredients to suit you.  Enjoy!

Guacamole

Use mostly avocado and add just a little of the rest to taste

ripe Avocados

ripe tomato

green onions

garlic

freshly squeezed lime juice

salt

Cut the avocados in half and remove the pit.  Scoop the flesh from the peel and place in a bowl.  Mash it with a fork/spoon/potato masher.  Mash as much as you like...it can be chunky or smooth, it's all a matter of preference.  Dice some tomato small, chop the green onion, mince the garlic and mix it all in.  Squeeze over some lime juice and a pinch or two of salt.  Mix it all together, taste.  Adjust seasoning as needed.  Eat this immediately, or add the pits back in to help retard browning, cover and refrigerate until ready for use (but not more than a day).

Don't forget to make some chips for dipping!  Cut a stack of corn tortillas into wedges.  Make them with your preferred method...fry them quickly in hot oil...bake them in the oven...lay them on a sheet of foil and bake them in the midday sun....  Hey, whatever floats your boat!

Kick back with a platter of Pico, Guac, and hot chips...perhaps a margarita or cerveza or kid-friendly bevvies...and some good company! 

 *Monday Mania*

Making your own Cultured Butter

Butter needs no introduction.  It is a wonderful, delicious, nutritious yeah, I said it, practical, indulgent entity all its own.

"Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts."  ~James Beard

"With enough butter, anything is good."  ~Julia Child

Cultured Butter

a recipe from GAARP at Of Cabbages and King Cakes
(kinda condensed version...if you need more detailed info, click link)

1 qt. (4 c.) heavy cream
1/3 c. whole milk yogurt...make sure you choose one with all natural ingredients, ie. no gums or stabilizers
Salt, to taste (optional) 

1. Combine cream and yogurt together in glass bowl.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 12-18 hours.  It will get very thick and delicious looking!  Once it has cultured, place it in fridge or bowl of ice water to reach a temperature of ~60 degrees F.

2.  Prepare a bowl of ice water; set it aside.  Place the cultured cream a large mixing bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer) and beat with whisk/attachment on high speed until stiff peaks form.  Reduce speed to low and watch closely.  Once the mixture breaks (butter separates from buttermilk), turn off the mixer.

Pour the buttermilk into a clean container. You can use this just as you would commercial buttermilk for drinking or baking. If you aren’t going to use it within a week or so, it can be frozen and used later for baking.

3. Press the butter with a spoon, spatula, or your hands to remove as much buttermilk as possible. I found it easiest to use a flexible rubber spatula here. Add any buttermilk to the rest you've already gathered. Pour water from the bowl of ice water over the butter to cover. Rinse the butter by kneading it under the water.

4. Dump water and repeat until the water becomes clear.  It is necessary to remove all the residual buttermilk in order to keep the butter from spoiling too quickly.

Once the butter has been cleaned thoroughly, knead it on the counter for a minute. If you want to salt the butter, press the butter out on the counter, sprinkle lightly with salt, then knead it in. I decided to divide my butter into thirds (not precise thirds...just three pieces, I suppose).  Into the one, I kneaded fleur de sel gris.  Into another, I kneaded Black Truffle sea salt.  Into the last, I kneaded a dried jalapeño/garlic/onion/salt blend that I received in the mail from my friend Linda from New Mexico.

To store the butter, you can press it into ramekins or roll it into logs. Cover the ramekins or wrap the logs tightly in plastic wrap.  You can make more than one roll from the butter and freeze one once you've wrapped it well.

I ended up with ~2 c. of scrumptious, tangy buttermilk and three rolls of butter, weighing a total of 21 oz. (~1 1/3 lb.)!!  The buttermilk was delicious enough to drink straight up...which I did with a bit of it, the rest I reserved for baking.  ALL three of the butter "flavors" were out of this world.  I mean, it was amazing all alone I licked it from my hands after kneading it yet equally amazing with the regular sea salt and the flavored salts.

The salted butter is fabulous anywhere you'd normally use butter...the jalapeño butter is soooo sinful slathered on a piece of hot, crusty toast or for tossing just cooked veggies in.  The truffle butter...aaaahhhh...on eggs, potatoes, meat- grill a steak and cut off a slab of it and let it melt into the top of the hot steak...nothing compares!

If you've never made your own butter, you should definitely give it a go!  It's super easy and rewarding.  You make regular butter the exact same way, just w/out adding the yogurt and going through the culturing step.  But boy, oh boy, do I LOVE the cultured buttermilk and the slight tang it gives the butter, too.

Feel free to join us over at Forging Fromage...add your link to the linky for the month in which you make it and we'll add you to the roundup!  Also, since cultured butter is the current BOM challenge, you can join in the (open) challenge over on Facebook.  Funny huh...a cheesy place and a bready place both featuring...well...something that's not cheese or bread this month!?  But at the same time...it's so natural.  Cheese and butter are both dairy products.  Bread and butter go hand in hand.  So, not really "funny" at all.  The links are below if you are interested!


*This post is linked to:

 BOM: Cultured Butter on FB

 Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist


*Today is your last chance to enter my GIVEAWAY for your chance at winning a $75 gift certificate to NOVICA! All entries must be entered by Monday, August 16 at 11:59 PM, Eastern time!