Featured
Soul Warming Recipes!
Big Green Egg
Featured
Hot & Spicy!
K’s Choice
Beef Sausages & Balsamic Tomatoes
Translator
FM
Kay’s Guacamole
My very first night time photo shoot! Spur of the moment thing; a friend requested a photo posting of my guacamole recipe after new years and—sweet as I am—I got right to it. Tucked my little man in and headed over to the kitchen. Even though it was relaxed to shoot without noise or a running toddler, whew! Absolute white balance horror. Now I know for sure why I prefer natural light!
My guacamole is nothing special or extraordinary, or maybe it is, it’s extra ordinary as in very plain and simple. But it’s the version I like best. Pure and basic, no frills. Avocados don’t need that, in my humble opinion.
What’s your favorite way of preparing guacamole?
Ingredients:
2 avocados
1 small shallot
1/3 chili pepper
cilantro or parsley
1 garlic clove
1 tomato
1 lime
salt
Directions:
Avocados. I love them. They’re so incredibly tasty and healthy. Cut the avocado’s lengthwise, take out the pit (I do this with a sharp knife) and scoop out the avocado flesh, put it in a bowl and coarsely mash it up with a fork.
I like a bit of zing to my guacamole, so I spike it with 1/3 chili pepper. You can leave it out, or use cayenne in stead. Your call.
Give the shallot the same treatment. I think adding very finely minced shallot brings guacamole to a higher level. It’s a great combination.
Still using the red garlic with the more intense flavor, so I went for 1/2 a garlic clove.
Finely chop a tomato. I’ve used a roma tomato this time, but have a habit of grabbing whatever I find in my fridge.
Normally you’d add cilantro but I can not stand the stuff. I hate it. Loathe it. The smell alone makes me ill and the flavor, well, it’s plain foul to me. So I use flat leaf parsley in stead. Finely chopped because nothing is worse than large pieces of fresh herbs in my guacamole. Yes, yes, I’m picky when it comes to my guacamole :)
Squeeze the juice of one lime in as well.
Add a bit of salt and give everything a good stir.
So … I guess that leaves me with a big bowl of guacamole and an open bag of tortilla chips. What to do? Oh, what to do? :)
– Kayotic Kitchen Recipe Card -
Click here for printable size.
Crikey this is beautiful. I’ve come on over from Pioneer Woman’s blog, and very grateful I am she sent me your way.
Just getting into cooking, despite being a 40 yr old single mum, and have just adored what I’ve seen so far of your Blog.
The recipe cards are a masterpiece – I’ve just started keeping recipe cards of my “tried and true” dishes (all 8 of them) that I know I can cook from scratch and that work. So now I’ll try some of yours, and add them in to my collection.
I’m learning photography and scrapbooking also, so your site is truly an inspiration. Sorry to gush, but you know when you find something new that’s really going to make a difference…it’s that exciting that you start gushing…yeah, well that’s where I’m at. :-)
Thanks again for an amazing, beautifully designed and presented blog.
Diane
Port Macquarie, NSW, Australia
Thanks for the compliments, Zehava, and glad you like it here! The recipe cards are a new addition and I don’t think I’ll have the time to add them to every recipe, but it’s a fun thing!
Not a cilantro fan either… I like diced fresh tomatoes and usually use Roma as that is usually what I have, a little bit of sweet onion and garlic that has been lightly sauteed, lime or lemon juice, wee bit of sea salt, a bit of tobasco – is my brew.
I taste quite a bit as I’m mixing – usually lucky to have enough left when I’m done…
Yours looks great – the only thing that I sometimes add is a smidge of sour cream to make it a little creamier – I love the use of lime and cilantro as those are a staple in mine!!
Happy New Year!!
As I am sure you probably know many of us have wandered over to your wonderful food blog from P Dub’s……………..now about cilantro………..I always find it interesting of the love/hate relationship folks have with this herb……mine is in the love column. Would think it just might be the aroma it emits when chopping??? dirty smelly sneakers come to mind to many.
I agree the recipe cards are very clever…………now off to see more.
Doodles, from what I’ve always understood is that it might be an allergy thing. They claim that people who don’t like it, usually really dislike it because of an allergy that makes it taste absolutely horrible. The more people I speak that have an outspoken love or an outspoken resentment towards it, the more I think the story might be right. There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground.
Oh yes, I feel your pain re: cilantro. I hate it too!
Even though it isnt authentic, I put oregano and basil in mine instead of cilantro.
My guacamole has tomatoes, diced jalapenos, lots of onion, garlic, lemon juice and cilantro (only I have to make a dish *with* cilantro and one without because hubby has the anti-cilantro gene, too!
On a topic other than cilantro…
So for the night shoot – extra lights or ???
The only thing that looks a bit different to me (without going to compare different posts) is skin tone but I doubt I would have noticed had you not said you shot at night.
Ann, no flash … I never use flash light—I have several built-in halogen lights in my kitchen that came in handy now, that and a tripod. It was a crime to get the white balance right. Everything came out so yellow and I definitely noticed a different feel to the photos. Weird shadows, shallow depth … things like that.
It’s nice to know that I can occasionally shoot at night, though, it’s more relaxed then, but did another one this afternoon and it was great to have normal light again :)
Robin, when I don’t have flat leaf parsley on hand I’ll just throw in dried basil. It works like a charm. I guess were really not food purists, eh?:)
I used to add lime, onion, etc. to my guacamole but now use the original recipe from The Shed in Santa Fe–for each avocado, use 1/4 tsp. of best-quality garlic salt.
That’s it, really and truly. People love it.
Great recipe! I don’t have one I use on a regular basis. If it is a perfect avocado, than it’s smashed with just a sprinkling of coarse sea salt and a glove of minced garlic. Sometimes a bit of sundried tomato gets thrown or romas and a sprinkling of lime juice. I had a professor from Cuba and one from Nicaragua who showed me how to make it. It was pretty wild to show up to a gathering as there would be numerous guacamoles and all were unique due to the origin of the cook!
Dried basil… hmm never thought of that one!
By the way what is in the bowl behind the guacamole? Tortillas chips? Have you ever tried guacamole on a sandwich? Or avocado ice cream? Not tried the ice cream but am willing to.. Have friends from the philippines who swear by it!
Yes, PW sent me here, too, a few months ago, and I’ve become a fan. First, because your recipes looked so fabulous, and made my mouth water. And then I tried your caramelized carrots… and oh my goodness! they were lovely. Definitely will make those again.
As for guacamole… this might sound a little strange to you, but then again I know you’re a fan of Lawry’s… I rarely make guacamole, but when I do splurge on an avocado now and again, I simply mash it slightly with a fork and sprinkle with Lawry’s Seasoned Salt. That’s it. I love it.
Thanks for sharing this lovely recipe… :)
I am another follower from Pioneer Woman’s blog. Your guacamole is perfect, and I spent 10 years in Texas, so I finally found out that less is best. My recipe is so close to yours, but I do not use shallot or onion. The major difficulty with this dish, as I see it, is you must buy twice as many avos as you need, since so many of them are woody and bad-tasting, despite their outward appearance and feel. I found that to be the case in Texas and Missouri, where I now live.
I was drawn here originally from the “braised red cabbage” recipe posted on PW. Though Ree credits it to you, I cannot find it on your site. See, I have a question about it. Where PW says to add thyme right before the cabbage, what her photo shows looks much more like curry powder or turmeric. So that’s what I used, and it was marvelous. Any comment from you would be appreciated.
Thank you, Kay.
I haven’t tried Guacamole, but I will sure give your recipe a try once I get my hands on some nice looking avocados!
Kay,
Love guacamole, but more than that, I LOVE your PHOTOGRAPHY!!! My camera is only a few months old, a nice one, but not with changeable lenses. Now that I’m being inspired by all the great photos I’m seeing (I’m new to blogging), I wish I had gotten a more “manual” type camera. Still playing with mine, but sure I’ll never be able to get the beauty that you have in yours.
Love your site!
Lin
Yum. I’m a huge fan of simple guacamole too. Your’s looks beautiful. One thing I do with mine is saute the garlic and shallots for just a few minutes in a tiny bit of olive oil before adding them to just soften the flavors a bit. I also chop of a jalapeno, seeds and all and toss it in there. And a touch of sour cream. And I love cilantro. Ok, maybe mine isn’t so simple?! Haha!
I hate cilantro as it tastes like soap to me. I often use fresh thyme which grows year round in my herb garden instead.
It is never a good idea to put tomatoes in the refrigerator though. I have 2 organic avocados from Whole Foods that I need to use. They were 99¢ each which is a good price. I love them with Trader Joe’s blue tortilla no salt chips.
I love guac! I am the most (self proclaimed) picky eater ever. We took our first vacation without our kids in 2004 to Mexico with our best friends. I tried guac for the first time and had it half a dozen times in our week there. But, I do like it with cilantro. Which is strange to me since so many people I know don’t like it, so I use parsley if I make if for a party, but cilantro when it is just me and a bag a chips. My hubby bought me an avacado slicer for Christmas, and there are two avacados sitting on the counter…., gotta go!
PJ Carz, that’s because I made that posting especially for Ree, so I didn’t put it in my own blog.
That’s sugar! They ran out of dark brown sugar so I grabbed the next best thing, light brown (caster) sugar. It looks almost beige.
Marcia, I think the soapy flavor is the allergy part I’ve been reading about.
In all honesty, that’s my quirk. I only really like tomatoes when I eat them straight from the fridge. I also don’t eat them very often, so after having to throw away lots of mouldy tomatoes that I had left on my counter top they went back to the fridge :)
Hi Kay,
I grew up in Florida with lots of Mexican food, so I have tried lots of guacamoles. My new favorite? The Albert Heijn pack! Have you seen it? It has 2 avacados, a round garlic clove, a shallot, a small tomato, a red chili pepper and a lime. I use everything (but just part of the chili, seeded) and add in a bunch of Cilantro. It is fabulous! No idea when we are moving back to the states, but I will miss AH!
Katie, I’ve seen it and tried it twice and just as many time did I have to race back to the store to buy new avocados because the ones in the pack were so brown they were unusable.