Recipe: Guacamole

I had not made guacamole in a long, long time. I used to make it so often that we got sick of it so I had to take a break from it. I decided to give it another whirl last week with avocados being on sale at Aldi last week for $.49. I also changed up the recipe I had used before and we really liked it.

You will need:
3 avocados, remove the seeds and scrape out the inside
2 plum tomatoes, chopped
1/4 c. lime juice
1 t. salt
1 t. fresh, minced garlic
about 1/4 c. red onion, chopped
cilantro--don't really know how much I used...maybe like 6 sprigs (is that a real word??), chopped

I put the avocado and lime juice in my blender to get the avocado nice & creamy. I also mixed in the other ingredients (EXCEPT for the tomatoes), to get everything finely chopped and mixed well. Scrape into a bowl and stir in chopped tomato. Chill. Serve with tortilla chips (pita chips are yummy too!).

*If you do not have a blender, you can just mash the avocado with a fork, it just won't be as creamy.

I am no expert (I could be doing it all wrong??), but these are the things I've learned about avocados:
When buying avocados for guacamole, you want to make sure that they are ripe and not really hard. I usually make sure that when I squeeze them that I am able to press in a little bit. You want to be able to scoop out the insides easily...and if it's not soft, then it will not make very good guacamole.

To scoop out the insides of the guacamole, I usually cut the avocado in half from top to bottom, flip out the seed and then take a spoon around the edges of the skin (peel?) to scoop out the inside. If you do not have a ripe avocado, this will not be an easy process.