Holy Guacamole!

Do you like guacamole? I love it, I hesitate to order it out cause I think what you make at home is often sooo much better than what you get at a restaurant. One exception is this place. Hubby took me here for date night last summer and the guac is to DIE for. They don't make a bad margarita either, and I am a margarita snob. I made guacamole the other night and I thought I would share the recipe with you all. It is so simple and so yummy.

Here is what you will need:
3-4 ripe avocados
1/2 of a small onion
1-2 cloves fresh garlic
juice of 1 lime or 1/2 of a lemon
A few shakes of hot pepper sauce
salt
cilantro
jalapeno pepper (optional)


To get the pit out I just play ninja and slap the blade of my knife right on it and give it a twist, the thing is so terrified of my ninja powers that it pops right out. Some people say if you keep the pit and throw it in the bowl with the finished guac, it keeps it nice and green. I find if you put enough lemon or lime juice in it the guac stays green without having to look at the pit in you dip.

Once I cut the avocado in half, I just take a spoon and slip it between the skin and the perfectly ripe avocado. Truthfully I could just throw some salt on it right here at this point and eat it up. But, then the hubby would be highly disappointed since he usually picks up the avocados for me form a Mexican grocery store. These particular avocados came from the regular old Wal Mart, so now that I am thinkin' about it, I would have been perfectly justified in gettin' my eat on with that plain ol' avocado.

Well back to the good stuff. For this batch I used 3 medium sized avocados. Yes, there are four in the pic, but I saved one of them to eat the next day on a grilled cheese. MMMM! Just dump the yumminess into a bowl. FINELY chop up about half of a smallish onion. I used a yellow onion because that's what I had. You can use any onion you have on hand, I especially like red. Throw the onion in with the avocado, then add a clove or two of fresh garlic. I use a garlic press for this because it really gets the pieces of garlic so tiny and you can get it all incorporated without worrying about biting a piece of garlic. Now I LOVE garlic so I always go for 2 cloves at least. The problem here is this stuff will stay with you for days if you get too carried away, which I usually do. My husband made me turn over the other direction in bed last night because he said he could still smell the garlic...I ate guacamole 2 days before! Dude, is that normal or I am a freak for smelling like garlic for so long after I eat it.

So now you have your avocado, onion, and garlic in the bowl. Salt this stuff liberally. I use Kosher salt for most things, just cause I like it. Use whatever salt you normally do. Kosher salt just tastes "cleaner" to me, if that makes any sense. It also is harder to over salt with it, don't ask me why. At this point I use a fork and just start mashing it all up. I like a little texture so I leave it a bit chunky. Here is where you can add a few shakes of your favorite hot sauce, I like Frank's Red Hot because it give great flavor and minimal heat. There's a time and place for heat, and guacamole ain't it. Now this will probably contradict what I just told you about that heat thing, but I like to use about half a jalapeno in it for just a little kick. The trick here is to strip the seeds and the ribs out of the pepper if you don't want it too hot. The seeds and the ribs is where the heat "lives", if you remove them, you get a mild jalapeno flavor without burning your lips off. Now squeeze that lemon or lime juice in there. You do this for 2 reasons really. 1.) it just tastes good, and 2.) the acid in the juice keeps the guac from turning that yucky brown color. You can even use a T. or so of bottled lemon juice if you have to. See how I have left it chunky? You can make it as smooth or chunky as you like. The last thing is to rip off a couple good handfuls of those cilantro leaves. Give them a good chop and toss those right in there. This is what kicks it over the edge. It adds the perfect "freshness" to the guacamole that you just won't get if you skip it.

Next time you get a hankerin' for some guac, whip it up yourself. It beats paying an arm and a leg for a tiny scoop of bland green stuff. The only down side is that garlic breath I mentioned...

Little Ave doesn't seem to mind!

Talk Soon,

G