So delicious, you'll keep it for yourself.

First, I want to thank LAJuice for her delightful guest post.  I love when my friends get together.

Second, I want to remind everyone that I've started my new job today and so spent last night in a minor frenzy of anxiety.  GAH.

Third, if it's Wednesday, it must be RECIPE TIME.  [I totally made that up.] [But it's still Recipe Time.]

Anyway . . . I was thinking about parties, because we're going to be having a couple for the girl and also my birthday is coming up [AUGUST 13th I LOVE PRESENTS] and I was also thinking about food, because of course, and then I thought about guacamole.

Mmmm . . . guacamole.  So tasty.  So delightful.  So fucking easy to make.

This has become the dish I bring whenever I am invited somewhere.  You'd think I'd get sick of making it or people would get sick of eating it, but it is one of those things where I'll be invited to a party and before I can even finish asking, "What can I bring?" I hear, "BRING THE GUACAMOLE."

So I bring the guacamole.

You can make as much or as little of this as you'd like.  For just us, I use one or two avocados [Maybe three.  Seriously, it's really good]; for parties, I'll use 8 or 9.

And the best thing is? IT IS SO EASY TO MAKE.  I mean, sure, people will be happy you've brought it and whatever, but a winning party recipe that takes about 15 minutes at the very outside to create?  YOU'RE WELCOME.

Don't you just love it when you get an avocado that actually looks this good? It's like you don't even want to waste it on a bunch of lamers who wouldn't recognize your goodness if it bit them in the ass.  And it might.

The Suniverse's Kick Ass Guacamole [That You Can Tell People Is Your Own Secret Recipe.  I'm O.k. With That.]

As noted, this recipe is highly adaptable - it can hang out at the poshest soiree or enjoy a hoedown in Hickville.  Wait.  What the hell?  It's highly adaptable because you can make as much or as little as you'd like.  I'd err on the side of making a ton.  You'll eat it.  Anyway, I tell you this because I'm not going to put measurements in the recipe.  You'll be fine, trust me. 

INGREDIENTS
Avocados, nice and ripe [I usually get them at least 2 days before I'm going to make this recipe.  Did I tell you about that time I was going to make this for a party but forgot to actually purchase the avocados beforehand and then went to THREE DIFFERENT STORES a couple of hours before the party trying to find ripe ones? Yeah.  That was awesome.]
Red onion
Garlic
Lemon
Tomatoes [I use the tiny little grape ones because I find them the least acidic, but you use whatever you like.  I give my permission.]
Kosher salt
Pepper

DIRECTIONS

1.  Chop your onion.  I'd go about 1/8 - 1/4 of a medium red onion per avocado. 

2.  Mince your garlic.  A clove is plenty.  I know that there are people who just smoosh their garlic with the flat side of a large knife, but that is lazy and frankly looks like boogers.

Foreground: Correctly minced garlic.  Background: Diced red onion.  To the right: A SUPER SHARP KNIFE.  LOOK OUT.

3.  Cut your lemon in half and seed it.  Make those little "shitshitshitshitshit" noises when you realize you have a thousand little paper cuts all over your hands.

4.  Dice your tomatoes.  I sprinkle a little kosher salt on them, because that makes them taste good.  I use about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of diced tomatoes per avocado.  But be advised that I am making that amount up completely.  I'm not even sure what those sizes look like.  I also may have made up the amount of red onion to be used in the recipe.  Just go with it.

5.  Get your nice, ripe avocados and cut them in half.  Scoop out the delicious greeness with the edge of a spoon and yank out the pit.  I know you're supposed to be able to whack the pit with a knife and easily twist it out, but I advise against it for the following reasons:  1. I'm afraid I will get a little carried away with the whacking and end up knifing myself.  Or, more probably, the husband, because he can make me a little testy sometimes.  2.  It's just as easy to scoop it out with a spoon, or your fingers, plus, if you use your fingers, you get to lick the avocado off them.  I do not recommend licking the knife.

6.  Dice your avocado.

7.  Put your ingredients in a bowl.  I am lazy and also am not so thrilled with the mixing bowls I own [isn't that a weird thing to have an opinion about?], so I just use the bowl I'm going to serve the guacamole in.  If you're in a hurry, you don't even have to cut up your avocado.  Just put it in the bowl and smash it up.  Really get your aggression out.  It's fine!  You may be resentful that you actually have to make something to serve at a party YOU ARE NOT EVEN HAVING or that you have to share something so delicious with people you can only tolerate at best, and this is an amazing way to feel better about it.

Your cast of characters ingredients. Seriously, how ridiculously perfect is that avocado?

8.  Mix everything together.  I like a chunkier guacamole, but the husband and the girl like it more dip-style.  Depending on how benevolent I'm feeling, we'll see who wins.  Because it is a contest.

I was feeling quite generous toward the husband and the girl that day, so the guacamole is relatively smooth.

9.  Squeeze the lemon over the guacamole and season with salt and pepper and mix it up some more.  I like adding a little extra lemon juice because it gives the dip a really nice tang.  Not TANG, because I think only NASA still gets that.  A kind of tasty zing.  I'd start with 1/2 a lemon and work up from there.

Eat this with tortilla chips or on grilled chicken or just from the bowl.  It's really, really good.  Would I lie?

WARNING:  Make this once for a party and you will be making this FOREVER any time you have an event. 

What to make when you love cheese but don't have an oven. No. Not Cheetos.

A couple of years ago, in summer, our oven stopped working.  This pissed me off, because I like to have working appliances, particularly those appliances that cost big bags of money to replace.  Because it was summer and we grill pretty much all the time and the stovetop actually still worked and we had a toaster oven, we put off buying a new oven.

You'd be amazed at how much you need an oven when you don't have an oven.  Even in the summer.

One of the reasons I needed an oven was because the girl and the husband are fiends for home made mac & cheese.  They love it.  I confess, I was not a fan of mac & cheese growing up - we very seldom had it, and I never grew to enjoy the taste.   I know, what a heathen.

That being said, I started making mac & cheese for the girl and the husband and then I'd try it and it grew on me.  I like the tang of the cheese and the heft of the noodles.  It makes your mouth happy.

The girl and the husband [and I] were very sad without mac & cheese, so I searched in my cookbooks [Joy of Cooking, Martha Stewart's Cooking School and Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa the holy trinity of cooking - or maybe just the 3 actual cookbooks I own] and online for a good stovetop recipe and found one by Alton Brown.  Who I enjoy, because he is hilarious.

And I now want to share this with you.  Because what a perfect time to share this recipe, when the temperature here and across most of the country is like the surface of the sun!  You can't pick a better time for warm, cheesy pasta!  It's a super easy recipe. I've added my own twists [MORE CHEESE] and used different kinds of milk and it ALWAYS comes out most excellent.

Without further ado:

Ridiculously Delicious and Easy Stovetop Mac & Cheese [Please stop buying Kraft]

Ingredients
1 lb pasta - I usually use shells or elbow noodles, but fusilli and those little wagon wheels also work well
2 TBSP butter
A buttload of cheese - usually about 12-16 oz.  I use a variety of whatever I have on hand, but at base it's mostly a sharp cheddar rounded out with a few ounces of other complementary cheeses.  This time, I used cheddar, colby jack, a bit of blue cheese, some fresh mozzarella that needed to be used up and some asiago.
4 eggs
12 oz evaporated milk, OR 12 oz of heavy cream OR half & half OR 2% milk.  Whatever you've got in the fridge or pantry.
Mustard powder or mustard, about 1TBSP
Kosher salt
Pepper
Unseasoned breadcrumbs [optional]


Directions
1.  Boil your noodles according to package directions.  Be sure to use a large pot, because the whole recipe is cooked in here.  I leave the noodles slightly underdone by a minute or so, since they'll continue cooking while the other ingredients are added.  Sometimes, I overboil the noodles and then I cry as I eat the mac & cheese, my tears mixing with the cheesy goodness and adding a slightly salty tang that I find kind of delicious.  I'd probably find it more delicious if I were eating the tears of my enemies, but we can't have everything, can we?

Still a bit undercooked, but yum! Macaroni!  Thanks, China!  And Marco Polo!

2.  While the noodles are boiling, whisk together the 4 eggs, your milk product and the mustard.

I know it looks like boogers, but it tastes like heaven.  Heavenly boogers.

3.  You'll also have to shred your cheese, unless you have minions to do this for you.  I find this kind of relaxing and therapeutic.  It's also an easy way to taste test the cheese before you add it to the recipe.  For science.

Yum.

 3.a.  Speaking of science, here's the kind of rocket scientist you're dealing with here:  I have been using a lot of lemons in my cooking recently, and a number of recipes ask for lemon zest, and every. fucking. time. I get pissed at myself for not having a Microplane or any kind of zester.  What kind of kitchen am I running here?  A shitty one.  Anyway, the last time I made mac & cheese, I was minding my own business, shredding cheese on my box grater, thinking happy thoughts, when I realized that this?

CHEESE!  [Yes, that is a bottle of Evian in the background.  I am an effete elitist.]

 has another side that has this:

You know what this is? YES. A TINY GRATER.

And that both can be used to remove the rind from a lemon.  TA DA!

4.  Drain your noodles.  [Wow.  That sounds pervy.]  Don't rinse, just put them back into the pot and add the butter and stir over the lowest heat.

I am actually not a fan of buttered noodles.  Too buttery.

 5.  Add the milk & egg mixture and stir until it heats through, about a minute or two.  If you happen to curdle the eggs, it's not a big deal.  It still all comes out delicious and people like scrambled eggs.  Actually, they don't even notice because they are in a mac & cheese coma. 

6.  Turn off the heat.  Add the cheese in batches, stirring to melt.  If necessary, turn the heat back on to the lowest setting, but there should be enough heat to melt that gooey, delicious cheese.

7.  Season with salt and pepper.  Take your time and add small amounts, partly because you don't want to over -salt or -pepper your food, but mostly because then that way you can keep tasting it to make sure it's good.  [It's good.]

I know, right?

 OPTIONAL STEP 8.  If you want, you can dry saute some unseasoned breadcrumbs to toss over the finished product, but you have to watch this carefully because that shit will burn like paper and then stink up your kitchen. 

9.  EAT!!  This makes a ton of mac & cheese, but I usually end up making the whole recipe because then we have the leftovers for lunch for a day or two [depending on how many people ask for some].  I have actually called the husband at work and yelled at him for taking the whole container of leftovers and leaving none for me and the girl, it's that good the next day.

So, if it's 95 degrees with 100% humidity and you feel like cooking something nice and hearty, here's your recipe.  ENJOY!