Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Guacamole


Guacamole

I got a lot of my inspiration for this recipe from the food network, go here for the original recipe or where my recipe differs.

Ingredients:
  • 4 Hass avocados - halfed, seeded, & peeled
  • 1 lemon - juiced
  • 1/2 tsp kosher fine sea salt
  • 1/2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 red onion - diced
  • 2 cloves of garlic - minced
  • 4 cluster tomatoes - diced
  • part of a red pepper
Directions:

Let the peeled, seeded avocados bathe or bask in the lemon juice (I wasn't smart enough to take the seeds out ahead of time and had to fish them out as I was juicing the avocados). Then pour some of the lemon juice into a small bowl and set it aside. Crush the avocados with a potato masher and add the sea salt, cumin, and cayenne pepper. Fold in the garlic, onion, red pepper, and tomatoes; and pour the lemon juice back into the mixture. Let the guacamole sit at room temperature of an hour and it's ready to serve.

* * * * * *

Recently, I ran across Ree Drummond's blog, and I've taken quite a shining to her method of sharing recipes. She includes loads of pictures, from the ingredients to the process of making whatever; it's almost like watching a video.

So, here goes the unabridged version of the guacamole I made today:

Ingredients:

4 ripe Haas avocados



I used four slivers of this lovely red pepper. So, this, too, is needed:



A lemon for it's tangy juice is needed. Unfortunately, my lemon had been sitting on the counter so long that the skin was very tired (translate: withered, hard, and dry).


Sea salt. Love me some sea salt.



Cumin. Good for so many tasty dishes. Yeah, uh huh.


Cayenne pepper. I didn't start using this ingredient in my cooking until more recently. Fire-y little thing.


Garlic. I love, love, love garlic; I thought instead of one clove, two cloves would be better.



Red onions (as opposed to other types of onions - white, sweet, yellow) have been my latest thing. Half of one of these babies.


Cluster tomatoes. They were on sale, and the advertisement boasted "red when picked." Who can beat that? I don't grow my own tomatoes; so that's not an option at this point.



The process, the making of the guacamole:

First, I cut up some red bell peppers like so:



But then I wanted it diced, so I cut it into even smaller pieces:



Diced up half a red onion. Why is it called a red onion when it looks purple?


Quick and easy way to mince garlic. A garlic press. I love Pampered Chef's garlic press (disclaimer: I am not being paid cash or given prizes to endorse their product).



Diced tomatoes. Looks somewhat similar to the diced red bell peppers, eh?



These wonderful avocados were ripe enough to slide the seed out and use my fingers to peel the skin off without any difficulty.


Then I halfed the lemon and squeezed the juice over the avocados. Flipped them over and juiced them some more. Like I said, I wasn't clever enough to remove the seeds from the lemon before squeezing; so I had to go seed fishing.



After the avocados bathed in the lemon juice, I poured a fair amount of the it into another (smaller) bowl and set the bowl of lemon juice aside.


May the mashing of the avocados commence. Thank you for help, Potato Peeler.

Mash.


Mash, mash.


Mash, mash, mush.


Forgot to add the condiments before I started mashing.

The sea salt.


The cumin.



Cayenne pepper. If you look closely, I had already added it, before I took a photograph. So, this spoonful of cayenne is just for looksies.


Ah, the red peppers, tomatoes, garlic, and onions.


The process of folding in the peppers, tomatoes, garlic, and onion.



The aforementioned four added ingredients fully folded inwards.


A bit of mixing help from my younger child.


And then it sat for an hour on the counter top.


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