A Quick Hitter: Homemade Guacamole!

On a whim a few nights ago, we decided to try our hands at some homemade guacamole.

Here's the quick recipe...

Stuff you'll need from the store:

1. A good sized avocado. (275 calories) If you don't know how to pick out a good one, just give it a little squeeze. You're looking for one that isn't rock hard, but isn't disgustingly mushy too. A little give goes a long way. (Sidenote: we used two avocados)
2. A Roma tomato. (40 calories) (Sidenote: we used two tomatoes)
3. A white onion (35 calories)
4. Cilantro  (hardly any calories)
5. At least one lime, for juice purposes (10 calories)
6. Additional seasoning items. We used the Mild Green Jalapeno Tabasco Sauce both because it's delicious and because it has a slightly limey taste to it. (0 calories, yeahhhh buddy!)

 Kitchen supplies you'll need:

A cutting board
A knife
A food processor that doesn't suck
A container or bowl to temporarily hold your unfinished guacamole
An air tight container with a lid to store your finished product to prevent browning



Lets make us some guac!

 Cut Up Some Veggies

• Cut your avocado(es) in half and remove the pits. Once the pits are removed, slide the avocado in to smaller pieces to make blending easier.
• Dice as much onion as you want to add. We used around 1/3 a cup. If you really love onions, use more. If you're eh about onions, do less.
• Cut your tomato(es) in to 8ths and seed them.  
• Dice some cilantro. We used somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 sprigs.
• Cut your lime(s) in half.

Fire Up the Food Processor

• Drop your avocado bits in to the processor and let it blend it until it's nice and creamy looking. You want the avocado to blend down as much as possible.
• Squeeze your lime halves over the blended avocado.
• Add in the additional cut veggies and whatever seasoning you've decided to add in and let it blend. You're looking for the smooth consistency of avocado, but everything else doesn't need to be blended down to liquid status. Having some small chunks of tomato/cilantro/onion is not a bad thing!

So close to done

• Once it's all blended and well mixed, transfer your guacamole to your airtight container and slap the lid on. Put it in the fridge until you're ready to eat.
• Make sure you keep it in the container with the lid on as much as possible. The more time it spends out in the open, the more oxidized and brown looking it will get. And nobody wants oxidized guacamole!

 And you're finished! Get to eating!


Calorie Information

A quick caloric break down:  

Avocado - 275 calories
Roma Tomato - 40 calories
White Onion - 35 calories for a medium sized onion. We less than 1/4 an onion. We'll call it 10 calories.
Cilantro - Under 10 calories
Lime juice - 10 calories per lime.

So your grand total for this heaping helping of delicious guacamole is 370 calories. This should make well over a cup of guacamole, which is enough to garnish 3 or 4 servings of whatever delicious Mexican style food you've decided to compliment with Guac a la Brandee and Mark. It also makes a killer dip for chips!

Post Meal Thoughts/Impressions

This was made completely on a whim just to see if we could do it, and it turned out spectacular. It was so fresh tasting, and the flavors perfectly off-set each other. I'm never buying store-made guacamole again!