Once upon a time last weekend, Fannie asked if we could make a dinner out of appetizers for Valentine’s Day. I thought it was a great idea … after all, I had kind of missed the Super Bowl (and consequently anything fun around it) and the girls were up for a little fun for dinner.
She came up with the entire menu, tracked down ingredients, and made up the grocery list. Then she and dad headed out to the store, coming home with everything we needed for mama to get started on dinner.
We all love homemade guacamole. We have to make it without red onions, as they don’t agree with my husband. I miss the red color though, so I add 1/4 cup chopped red bell peppers to make up for it.
Guacamole is a super easy appetizer to make and can be served with everything from tortilla chips to plantain chips, or even vegetable sticks. Both my girls have learned how to make guacamole and have even taught their friends!
I’ll get to sharing my recipe below but first wanted to share the rest of our menu for the evening. It was so cute seeing Fannie spread out the cookbooks on the kitchen table, paging through them until just the right picture popped out at her as a Must Make Recipe. Before I knew it she had Post-It Notes flagging certain pages … “Mayby”(maybe) and “Dizrit” (desert) being my two favorites! She wanted thinly sliced sweet potato chips but wasn’t so sure about the serrano chili dip, though was 100% certain about the pear-berry crisp from Against All Grain for dizrit.
Valentine’s Appetizer Dinner Menu
- Twice-baked organic russet potatoes with grass-fed butter, shredded goat cheese, full fat coconut milk, and bacon crumbles as the filling/topping
- guacamole (see recipe below)
- porcupine meatballs (I’ll have to post this recipe later as it’s super easy and so good … I ate these meatballs warm and cold all week long!)
- Summer salad with Thai peanut vinaigrette from Against All Grain (This very well be my new favorite peanut sauce — holy buckets, sooo good. But most anything served with fresh mango is a good thing in my book.)
- Pear-berry crisp from Against All Grain, served with cashew milk ice cream for dizrit to round out the evening
Guacamole
Ingredients
- 4 ripe avocados
- 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
- 1/2 lime, juiced
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/4 cup chopped red bell pepper
- 1/2 cup Salsa Lisa mild salsa
Instructions
- Peel and scoop avocado into a bowl. Mash with a fork.
- Chop cilantro and sprinkle into bowl, then add spices, bell pepper and salsa.
- Mix to combine.
