Foodie Friday: Perfect Guacamole

I can hardly be considered an expert on guacamole since I have only been eating it for about 4 weeks. Although I will accept the title of Mexican food fanatic. I cannot remember a time in my life where Mexican food was not my favorite thing to eat. Mexican food and Cheesecake is all I need to live on, but we will talk about Cheesecake another day. I can be somewhat close-minded sometimes and have found as I get older I am more adventerous about trying new foods, but had never seen a need to try guacamole, until I was at lunch one day with my precious husband. He had a blob of guacamole on his plate and decided to taste it and found it quite tasty and encouraged me to try. It wasn't bad. Actually it was good and I thought possibly at some future date I might try it again. Only a couple of days later a co-worker showed me some new recipes and low and behold, The Perfect Guacamole was one of the recipes. I decided to try it at home that night and have been hooked since then. In four weeks I have probably made the recipe 6 times and it is a little bit different each time. I wanted to share this recipe with you. I am making it my own each time and you can do the same.

Perfect Guacamole
Ingredients
· 2 ripe avocados
· 1/2 onion, minced (about 1/2 cup)
· 1 jalapeno, stems and seeds removed, minced
· 2 tablespoons cilantro leaves, finely chopped
· 1 tablespoon of fresh lime
· 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
· A dash of freshly grated black pepper
· 2 cloves garlic, minced

Serve with tortilla chips.

Method
1 Cut avocados in half. Remove seed. Scoop out avocado from the peel, put in bowl and toss with lime juice.
2 Using a fork mash the avocado. (A food processor may be used for a smoother texture.) Add the chopped onion, cilantro, lime, garlic, salt and pepper and mash some more. Chili peppers vary individually in their hotness. So, start with a half of the jalapeno and add to the guacamole to your desired degree of hotness. Be careful handling the peppers; wash your hands thoroughly after handling and do not touch your eyes or the area near your eyes with your hands for several hours.
Remember that much of this is done to taste because of the variability in the fresh ingredients. Start with this recipe and adjust to your taste.
3 Cover with plastic wrap directly on the surface of the guacamole to prevent oxidation from the air reaching it. Refrigerate until ready to eat.
Serves 2-4

-Melissa