The Recipe Everyone Loves: Guacamole

I don't know about you but when I see the pre-made guac at the store (not the bagged kind, but the kind in the deli) marked at NINE dollars minimum for a small container at Whole Foods and only a couple of bucks less at Kroger or when I pay 6 bucks for a tiny little bowl of it at a restaurant I just want to make it myself so that I can eat all of the deliciousness without the huge price tag. 

Somewhere around the end of my time at St. Ambrose I learned from a fellow student the basics of making guacamole from scratch. Since then I have played with the recipe to make it mine-oh-mine and it always gets rave reviews whenever I take it anywhere. The best part is that it is: 1) EASY 2) quick and 3) you can modify it to suit your own tastes. 

Annndd since my wonderful boyfriend got me the best birthday gift ever the Ninja Kitchen System 1100 I have been experimenting with using it for things other than just my smoothies. Here's a picture of all of the goodies that come with the system:

Picture from ninjakitchen.com

For Thanksgiving 2011 (yes, this post originated more than a month and a half ago) Vince and I spent the day together, went to see the new Muppet's movie, and then his parents, brother, and uncle came over in the evening to visit. We wanted to have some munchies so we made our pretty much signature guacamole as well as a Velveeta-taco-delicious dip. 

I also thought since people are always asking for the recipe I'd just go ahead and put it here online so I can teach the masses (hehe, a girl can dream) how I make guac. So here goes nothing!

Gather your supplies! I'm going to be super vague here because it all depends on how much guac you'd like to have. I will tell you amounts I used for this batch, and you can judge from there.

1-2) I had seen these green avocados at Wal Mart several times and always meant to look them up because they seemed to have more bang for my buck than the black avocados I typically had seen. I decided to go ahead and grab three and try them. Luckily they are exactly the same and turned out to have more volume for less cash. 

3) Salsa. Any kind will do, but I have found that cheap salsa often=lack of flavor. Luckily this Great Value one is cost effective and tasty.

4) Salt, Garlic Powder, and Lemon (or Lime, I prefer Lemon) juice. You can also use fresh, but I just keep this on hand for all kinds of cooking needs. 

5) I didn't take pictures of these steps but I cut the avocados in half, scooped out the flesh and saved one of the pits. This keeps your guac from browning when you stash it in your fridge for later. This is where the ninja came into play, I put the flesh into the food processor and blended it until smooth. I put that in my Pyrex. Then I put about a cup of salsa in the mix.

6) I added about a 1/4 cup of lemon juice and 2-3 teaspoons of both salt and garlic. All of this is really to taste, start off light and add in unless you have extra avocados to add to balance out.

7) Mix it all up and taste test to see if anything is missing. Serve it up! This filled almost my entire 1.75 quart Pyrex bowl. 

Like I said, everyone always ask for the recipe for this and are amazed when I tell them it's as simple as this. I think they don't believe me that I made it at first, and probably still leave thinking I swung by a Mexican joint on my way to the party. 

All in all the cost really comes to about 5-6 bucks for significantly more guac than you'd get at the store or restaurant.