Ingredients

• 2 ripe avocados
• 1 medium tomato
• 1/4  of a large onion
• 3 cloves of garlic chopped
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp cilantro
• Juice of one lime
• Juice of half a lemon
• 1/2 tsp dried chili pepper
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

First of all, make sure your avocado’s are ripe.  They should be soft but not mushy when you press on the skin.

Using a large knife, cut through the avocado lengthwise all the way around, then twist and pull to revel the pit.

Next, lay the avocado with the pit facing up on a cutting board and take a large knife and swing it down into the avocado pit hard enough so that it goes into the pit about 1/8 of an inch.

Now twist and pull and the pit will pop right out (the riper your avocado the easier the pit releases)

Take a dish towel and grasp the pit and pull it off the knife.

Now take a smaller knife and score all of your avocado halves.

Using a spoon scoop out the avocado into a bowl

Repeat with all remaining avocado halves. You will be left with a pile of cute little avocado skin boats!

Now take a medium tomato and quarter it

Take each quarter and using your knife held horizontally to the cutting board, slice under the seeds and core, leaving just the meat of the tomato (tomato seeds in guacamole are just not good)

Dice up the tomato meat

I like chunky guac, but make the pieces of vegetable as large or small as you want

Dice 1/4 of a large to medium onion and add it to the bowl

Add 3 cloves or about 1 tbsp of chopped garlic to the bowl

I like to use a combination of lime and lemon juice in my guacamole.  You will need one lime and half a lemon

Cut the lime and squeeze the juice into the bowl, do the same with half of the lemon.

Next comes the spices

add the cilantro (use fresh if you have it, but dried works ok too), salt, pepper and dried ground chili pepper.

Stir well to combine.  The more you stir the smoother it will get, so use your own discretion there.

I recommend refrigerating it overnight for best results.

Ingredients

• 1 cup fresh basil
• 1 ounce pistachio nuts
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 ounces freshly grated parmesean cheese
• 1/8 cup olive oil
• 4 ounce marinated artichoke hearts
• 6 ounces cooked chicken breast
• dash Kosher salt
• 1 package mini Phyllo shells

Procedure

Heat oven to 350 degrees

Grate the cheese

Put the basil in the food processor and give it a spin

Add in the garlic and nuts and about half the cheese

Slowly drizzle in the olive oil (while the food processor is running)

Add the artichokes and salt

Process until nice and creamy

Mmmmm….

Get your chicken ready.  I used the Tyson Grilled and Ready diced chicken I had in the freezer, any kind of chicken breast will do though

Take out about half of the pesto mixture and put it in a bowl

Leave the rest of the Pesto in the food processor and add the chicken.  Pulse until the chicken is chopped up. Next time I will leave mine a bit courser than this

Remove from the food processor and put in the bowl with the rest of the pesto and mix well

Fill the Phyllo tart shells with the mixture and sprinkle with a bit of the remaining cheese

Arrange on a baking sheet

Bake for 12-13 minutes then turn to broil for 1 minute

Enjoy!

Nutritionals per 2 mini tarts (approximate)