Homemade Italian Guacamole Dip and Garlic Crackers

One of our favorite places to go on a date is a great little Italian restaurant just down the street.  We have our favorite appetizer and dessert that we ALWAYS order.  But, sometimes we want those yummy treats without having to get a sitter, dress up, leave the house, and pay restaurant prices.  So, I have tried to recreate one of our favorites here.

This is an Italian style guacamole dip with crispy garlic crackers.  I searched all over the internet for over an hour trying to get a recipe for this with no success.  So I thought I would share what we made here for anyone looking for this treat.

Here's what you will need:
double recipe for crackers - I just made biscuit dough and then added additional flour:)
1 chopped red onions
minced garlic
olive oil
1 cup grated Italian blend cheese
Italian spices (oregano, basil) to taste
6 avocado
1 chopped tomato
salt and pepper to taste

The crackers:
I have never made crackers at any point in my life...bread, yes...but crackers, no.  So, I searched the internet for a while and not finding a recipe that I loved, I decided to just make a double batch of biscuit dough.  I then kneaded in as much extra flour as I could.  Rolling the dough as thin as possible (the thinner the better), and cutting two large circles, I placed the dough on two round baking pans.  I especially like baking them round to get the great pizza style triangular shape for dipping when sliced. 

Next, I drizzled olive oil on the dough and topped with Italian spices, minced garlic, Italian blend cheeses, and chopped red onion. I baked at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, until I could see crispy browning on the edges.

Here is the cracker before I placed the onions on top. I actually forgot them and took the picture and then thought something was missing and realized it was the onions. 

Here is the picture with onions.  It just truly looks so much more appetizing with the onions.  

This pan was my friend when it came to getting the crackers crispy:)

The dip:
I chopped 3 avocados  and massed 3 more.  I then added chopped tomato, garlic, Italian spices, salt and pepper folding over until all ingredients were combined well.

The final product.  Yum!

The crackers didn't get as crispy as I would have liked so next time I will try to use a roller to get them thinner and maybe cook just a bit longer.  Other than that, this was a fantastic appetizer and the kids loved it, onions, avocado, and all:)

Schooling outside the four walls

It's finally here!  Fall.  And with it is cooler (notice the -er) weather and the chance to get out of these four walls and learn.

Today we did just that.  Because we are studying birds this week, we had a super-sleuth, bird, scavenger hunt.  Because I love integrating several different subjects and learning hands-on, we took along magnifying glasses, sketch books, pencils, and tons of stored up energy.

I turned them all loose at the park with the goal of looking for four clues or signs of birds.  They then drew pictures of the four clues in the sketch pad to be placed in their portfolio later.   


Here are a few pictures from the afternoon.

 I am just ecstatic that it is finally cool enough to be entering that season where we turn the world into our classroom:)