Mexican Dinner for 6 Part Two (prep!)

Guacamole
Day before prep:
Chop finely 1/4 of a white onion, 2 medium tomatoes (seeded), approximately 1/4 c. cilantro and 2 (smallish) cloves of garlic. Add juice of 2 limes. Hopefully your limes have more juice than the ones I had. I scraped out the little football shaped lime bits that stick out like fringe after reaming and added them to the mix. I only just bought the avocados today so they are in a brown paper bag ripening as much as they can before tomorrow.



Day of finishing:
Remove flesh of 3 avocados in bowl, stir it all together add salt and a splash lime juice to taste.

Pause for banana bread:









Chocolate Souffles
I've read that souffles can be stored in the fridge for up to 24 hours- so I decided to make these ahead as well (after cleaning up the banana bread I made earlier this evening - a great way to use over ripe bananas! You can even get them for free :-) sometimes from your local health food store if they have brown banana on the shelf .)

To make these spicy I'm using some Dagoba Xocolatl mix in the souffle prep. The hot chocolate was too intense for me but if I use 1 oz of this mix as one of the 6 oz of chocolate the recipe calls for I think it will be a nice hint of spice instead of overwhelming burning spice. We'll see!

In a heat proof bowl set over top of a saucepan filled with water (double boiler)- don't let the water touch the bottom of your bowl!:
5 oz chopped 72% dark chocolate 1 oz Dagoba Xocolatl mix a dash of cinnamon 6 Tbps butter 2 Tbsp water ( or rum or coffee- neither of which I have on hand)

Turn on heat until the chocolate starts melting and the butter is completely melted. Remove from heat and let cool 10 minutes.

While that is cooling separate
4 eggs tossing (or saving for later) 1 yolk. Whip the egg whites in a clean and dry bowl until foamy. Add
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
and mix more. When you have soft peaks that aren't dry (this is something I think you learn from trial and error and carefully watching the sheen of your whites as you mix them) slowly whip in
1/4 cup of sugar.
(I used a little less sugar because the hot chocolate mix already had sugar in it.)

Smear butter on the bottom and up the sides (and inch from the top) of your 1-1/2 quart souffle dish. Sprinkle sugar in and swish around to cover all the buttered surfaces. (The sugar grains on the side of the pan help the souffle climb up the sides of the dish.)

Fold egg whites into chocolate mixture. You don't want to stir is because then you will pop all the little bubbles that give your souffle volume! (Or else you pretty much have a flourless chocolate cake and why would you go through the trouble of whipping the eggs whites if you wanted that!?) Be aure there aren't any (or very minimal) streaks of white and pour the souffle mix into your prepared dish. Cover in plastic wrap immediatly and put in fridge. We'll see tomorrow if the air bubbles actually stay! I've made souffles a handful of times before but never tried making it the day before.













It's been a busy evening, but it will make tomorrow less hectic while I'm trying to make mole!

**EXTRA UPDATE**
KE is running a bit late so I did a little more prep!
For the mole you get dried chilies which you remove the stem and seeds from and soak for 30 minutes, so I'm doing that now. I will pop them in the fridge after I drain them so they will be ready to go tomorrow. If I have more time I might chop some veggies but I want to be ready to go when KE gets here.



Also, something I rarely do but am learning I ought to do more often for dinner parties and gatherings. I made a schedule for meal prep! (This is a little post-it- yes I write small!) Based on the time it will take to cook things and including some prep time- I didn't account for the guacamole but that should only take 10 minutes or so which I can do while the mole bakes for 90 minutes!)