Birthday Highjinks - Salsa and Guacamole

Saturay was my birthday and in the evening I had a few friends round for a meal. I am obsessed with food from the Southern States of America so I made a kind of American Barbecue/Tex Mex feast.

I did slow roast pork, baked beans, macaroni cheese, curly fries, coleslaw, green salad, bread rolls, curly fries, barbecue sauce and apple sauce. Then we has a peach and blueberry cobbler and an apple and blackberry cobbler for pudding, with a carrot cake that my Mum had made. The whole meal was fantastic, really tasty and it was lovely to be able to try everything all together for the first time. I would love to go to this region of the States and taste it all properly. I'm going to post the recipes for some of the food over the next week or so, with a break for Daring Cooks in Friday. The macaroni cheese I totally cheated on and used a jarred sauce I'd brought back from the States and the curly fries were out a packet. For the coleslaw I used this recipe leaving out the yoghurt as one of my friends is lactose intolerant. My Mum made the bread rolls and the lettuce came from her garden, everything else I will put up in due course including the puddings!

We started off the evening in the garden as the afternoon/evening was lovely; sunny and mild. I served Tomato and Corn Salsa and Guacamole with tortilla chips and crisps along with some Pimms and lemonade.

Tomato and Corn Salsa

1/2 mug sweetcorn
1 tomato, diced
1/2 red onion, diced
8-9 leaves oregano, chopped
juice 1/2 lime

If your sweetcorn is frozen cook for about 5 mins in boiling water.

Then combine everything except the lime in a bowl. Squeeze over the lime juice and serve.


Guacamole

2 ripe avocadoes, peeled, stoned and chopped
small red onion, chopped
juice 1 lemon
8 drops Tabasco sauce
small bunch coriander, chopped

Put the avocadoes and red onion into the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the avocadoes are mushed a bit. Add in the lemon juice, tabasco and coriander and pulse until the mixture is smooth with a few chunks.