Today lets discuss an all time favorite of mine, Guacamole and Bean Dip.

Prep Time: 15 min.

Guacamole is a dip made with Avocados and a few other ingredients. The hardest part is to get yourself some ripe avocados, the second hardest part is how to tell if the are ripe.A ripe avocado is relatively firm, but will yield to gentle pressure when held in the palm of the hand and squeezed. Color cannot always be trusted to determine whether or not an avocado is ripe. The squeeze test is the most accurate.

If you can’t find any ripe ones you will need to delay you guacamole festival a couple a days while you let the avacodos ripen in a cool place. If you can’t wait that long, you can hasten ripening by placing the avocados in a brown paper bag. An apple will make them ripen even faster.

Now that we have some ripe avocados we will need to gather the other ingredients.

2 to 3 Ripe Avocados
3 Tbls Finely Diced Onions
2 Tbls Sour Cream
1 tsp Lemon Juice
1 tsp Chili Powder
1/4 tsp Ground Cumin
1-1/2 tsp Granulated Garlic (not garlic salt)
4 to 6 dashes of Tabasco
1/2 cup Medium Diced Tomatoes
Salt & Pepper to taste

Start by cutting the Avocados in half. There is a large pit in the middle so you will need to rotate the fruit as you cut it. Once you have circumnavigated the fruit twist the halves apart. Now you have two halves, one with no pit and one with a pit surprisingly secure in its place. I usually pry it out with the tip of the knife. Or, if you are really careful, you can hit the pit with the sharp edge of your knife and the pit will come out of the Avocado. The hard part then, is to get the pit off the edge of the sharp knife without cutting yourself. That’s why I pry it out.

OK, once your avocados are pit less use a spoon to scoop the avocado from it’s skin into a medium size bowl. Now you need to decide if you like your dip smooth or chunky.

If you like it smooth, combine all the ingredients except the sour cream and diced tomatoes in the bowl and mix them all together with a stick blender on high. Then add the sour cream and tomatoes and blend in with a spoon. Taste and adjust seasonings.

If you like it chunky just mash it with a fork and all the ingredients and mix together with you fork. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Now for the bean dip, you can do this the hard way or the easy way. The hard way is to get some dry pinto beans, clean and sort them for stones and other debris, let them soak over night, cook them for an hour or so, add some lard or shortening, mash the crap out of them, season them, let them cool down, store them for a day and finally refry them when you want to serve them. (reheating them in a frying pan is where the got there name “Refried Beans”)
Or you could do it the easy way, open a couple of cans of your favorite brand of refried beans, add a couple tablespoons butter, a little chili powder, a little granulated garlic and a couple dashes of Tabasco. Bring it all up to to heat in a medium sauce pan on medium heat and you have some of the best refried beans I have ever tasted.

As for the chips I find you can get some pretty edible chips if you find a good local brand in you area. In my area, south west Michigan, we have El Matador Chips. El Matador is a local supplier to the Tex-Mex restaurants in our area.

If you want some really fresh chips you can fry your own. Buy some corn tortilla, once again from a local supplier if you can, and cut them into quarters. No, no, no, not into small circles. Cut a stack of about 20 tortillas in half and then cut these in half again. Heat your favorite frying oil to 350 degrees in a 5 to 8 quart pot. A dutch oven would be the best choice. Once the oil is up to heat add a hand full of tortilla quarters and cook till the stop sizzling, about 3 to five minutes. Drain in a pan with a cooling rack on the bottom and season with Season Salt while still hot.

Serving Suggestion:

See picture at top of posting and add your favorite salsa or hot sauce..

Tags: Chili Verde, Cusinart, Desert, kinves, knife