Guacamole

I've been eating guacamole for the last several days. I don't have much of an appetite with the current temperatures we're experiencing in Maryland. I just want something simple and quick, all while tasting delicious. Normally, I would slurped on a tiny cup of guacamole from Chipotle. But, I realized how silly it would be to waste gas, drive to one of their locations and spend money on such a small amount. It would be a better investment if I made my own.

So, I did!



There are several recipes online to make guacamole. I weeded through a few of them and combined different elements from each. I knew the foundation of making this dish was as simple as buying an avocado. But I needed to make sure there was some form of kick to it as well.

Here is how I made my guacamole. Keep in mind that I am not a traditional cook. I do not like measurements or conciseness. I just go with the flow and taste as I go. In a nutshell, the process went like this:

To break it down a bit, this is what I did:

First up: Ingredients

For a small serving, you will need about 3 Hass avocados. They are label in the grocery store this way. Mine cost $3 for two. Make sure you choose the ones that are ripe. You will notice the more ripe an avocado is, the darker it will be, like purple-ish.

A lemon. A lime. A red onion. Fresh cilantro. Serrano peppers (look very similar to jalapeno, so make sure you pick the right one up). Salt, pepper and any other season you want to add. Some suggest cayenne pepper and a dash of hot sauce for an added kick.

Preparation

Cut the avocadoes in half. Take the pit out. Don't throw the pit away though. Save it. I cut a grid pattern on my avocados. It makes it easier to scoop them out with a spoon. Make sure you have a big enough bowl with room to mash. I didn't. So I switched over to a bigger bowl. Like I mentioned before, I don't have a method. I am a trial and error type of person. Ha!

Mash the avocados like you would potatoes. At least that's how I did it. Worked perfectly. Don't worry about chunks of avocado that remain. This is a great way to keep texture to the dip and adds a little fun to it.

I squeezed both the lemon and lime. I added the juice of both to my liking, mashing it evenly into the avocado mix. I leaned more towards the lime juice than the lemon juice. Save a bit of the juice for the end.

Cutting

Make sure you wash all of your ingredients.
You will need to cut the serrano peppers, onions and cilantro.

The peppers need to be cut in half, then deseed them. Chop them into smaller pieces after that. For the onion, I created another grid pattern. Then, I cut the entire onion so that the square bits would fall off. The cilantro leaves are all you need. Just cut them from the stem or simply pull them off. You can chop them down a bit if you'd like.

Using a food processor, combine and fine chop the peppers, onions and cilantro. Save a bit of the onions, unchopped, if you want a bit of texture to your guacamole. I thought it was easier to create a puree of all of the ingredients and mix it into the mashed avocados. I used a NutriBullet to do this. You could easily use a blender. The puree comes out a dark green, which makes for great coloring when combined with the avocados.

Combine the puree with the mashed avocados. Add salt, pepper and whatever else you think it needs. This is a step that is completely up to you. I also added the unchopped red onions to my mix. I continuously added lime juice and lemon juice until the flavor was good. Keep in mind that once it is refrigerated and sits for a bit (if you can wait that long), the flavor does get better. On the top layer, I squeezed a bit of lime juice to seal the flavor before wrapping.

Take one of the pits from the avocados and push it into your dip. Then, cover it with plastic wrap, making sure  you put it completely on the dip so that no air gets in. These two methods should prevent it from browning or oxidizing.

Place in the refrigerator.

Then, get a bag of chips and enjoy your dip later.

We're still snacking on guacamole today. It is so delicious.

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