Guacamole by Mortar & Pestle

Last weekend Dennis and I met my parents for dinner at this Mexican restaurant called El Dorado. My dad ordered some guacamole and the waitress actually wheeled out a cart and made it for us at the table. It was pretty awesome, and Dennis was very taken with it. I deduced it after he asked me to get us a mortar & pestle while I was at Marshalls this week. I have mad deduction skills!

I got us some stuff to make guacamole and so tonight we made it. I learned from the recipe that guacamole comes from two Aztec Nahuatl words - ahuacatl & molli, or "avocado sauce." Interesting stuff!

Ingredients
2 avocados
1/3 red onion
1-2 hot peppers (I used 1 jalapeno and 1 purple coffee pepper)
2 tbsp cilantro leaves, finely chopped
1 tbsp lime juice
1/2 tsp salt
Dash of pepper
1/2 tomato (about 1/4 cup)

This is pretty basic. Just put all of the ingredients in the bowl and mash them up! If you don't have a mortar & pestle then you can use a fork to smash up the avocado. My dad told me to watch the waitress cut up the avocado, which was great because she did it way more quickly and efficiently than I used to. Well, never again!

She sliced it in half, longways around the seed. Then to remove the seed, she just whacked it with the knife so it got stuck, then pulled it out with the knife.

Neato!

Once the seed was out, Dennis just scooped the avocado out with a spoon and dumped it into the mortar. Then he started pestling.

Action shot!

Close up

 Then we added all the other ingredients and pestled some more. Annnnd scene!

This guacamole was pretty awesome and very easy to make. One quick tip - the recipe said don't add the tomatoes until right before they are being served. I'm guessing the tomatoes go bad more quickly than the rest of the ingredients. We put half of the recipe in a tupperware in the fridge, then added the tomato to the rest and pestled that as well.

Here is the link to the original recipe.

Prepping for Some Guacamole!

So I didn't actually make anything new for this post, but I wanted to talk about some stuff so I made up a post for it. First of all, look at my peppers.

The green ones are jalapenos, and the orange & red are... wait for it... PURPLE Trinidad coffee peppers. Say what? I read on some forums that they mature and turn red, but they have been turning orange also. This is insane. Note - they are still hot as all hellfire.

I said I didn't make anything new, but I did make something... more pineapple salsa. I had some on top of salmon last week and I was licking the freakin plate afterward (that is a slight exaggeration). However, I only used purple peppers in it, and I added more than last time. I was seriously coughing while I was cutting these peppers because they were so hot they invaded my face. I had to step back from the counter... that is actually NOT an exaggeration. I'm a little scared to eat this salsa, but I will be brave and keep some milk and bread nearby.

Don't look directly into the orange flecks!

For some reason, stores only sell cilantro in boat-loads so I have a ton of it left over. Dennis & I are going to make guacamole on Friday, so we'll use some more for that, but I still feel like I need to find more recipes that use it so it doesn't go to waste. I looked up how to preserve cilantro online and I found this: put it in a glass of water and stick it in the fridge. Easy peezy.

My cilantro bouquet

The last time I made mango avocado salsa, I saved the avocado seed and cared for it and loved it and stuff, and now it's a big avocado tree! Ok not really, but I did stick 3 toothpicks in it and suspend it in some water.

That was over a month ago, maybe 2 months ago, and since then the bottom has cracked open and roots are coming out! OMG! I even had to move it to a bigger glass so the roots could expand. I just have to wait for a stalk to come out of the top and then maybe I can put it in a pot with soil or something. Yay.

Wouldja look at that? Awesome. It's a bummer though, because I have read and heard from people that they rarely bear fruit. Sad. Well maybe MINE will be the one exception. :) That's all for now, ta-ta!

Mango Avocado Tomato Salsa

Finally, the real reason behind the whole blog. The salsa. It came to us in a combination of ways.. there is a lovely restaurant in Salisbury, MD called Cactus Taverna that serves mango slices on top of their entrees and it really adds a great flavor to fish.

We decided that we wanted to try mango on our own fish. Dennis talked to my mom about mango/peach salsa and said he wanted to try to make some at home. So we planned on making the salsa to put on top of some tuna steaks that we got from Target. I know right? Target has a really great grocery section now, in case you didn't know.

Anywho, Dennis asked me to find a recipe for mango salsa, and this is the first one I found. The prep work is time consuming, but once you have finished you just toss all of the ingredients together and let them mellow.

Ingredients

1 mango - peeled, seeded and diced

1 avocado - peeled, pitted, and diced

4 medium tomatoes, diced

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1/4 cup chopped red onion

3 tablespoons olive oil

Combine the mango, avocado, tomatoes, jalapeno, cilantro, and garlic in a medium bowl. I have a slap-chop type device that I use to dice all of the ingredients. It seems to work well and it is a lot easier than cutting everything with a knife.

We bought 2 of everything so that we could try the recipe twice. The second batch was better because everything was a lot riper so I would recommend buying your ingredients a few days in advance.

We used jarred jalapenos & jarred minced garlic for the recipe but you could try to get them fresh. We just kind of eyeballed it as far as the amounts go, but it ended up being about 8-10 jalapeno slices and 2.5 teaspoons of minced garlic.

Stir in the salt, lime juice, red onion, and olive oil. Just FYI - one large lime will give you 2 tablespoons of juice, but if the limes are on the small side I would get 2. To blend the flavors, refrigerate for about 30 minutes before serving.

We grilled the tuna steaks and did some boil-in-a-bag white rice, then put a scoop of salsa on the plate. The meal was perfect.

This tastes amazing the day after you make it. We had it stored in a mixing bowl with a lid, but the lid isn't 100% airtight and when I opened the fridge the next morning, the amazing aroma hit me in the face like a 2x4. I was getting creamer for my coffee and I started wondering if salsa would be good for breakfast! I ate it later in the day with tortilla chips and it was excellent.

The second time we made the recipe, we doubled the mango and it was still amazing. I had salmon and Dennis had chicken, and they both went very well with the salsa.

Here is the original link from AllRecipes.com.