Classic Combinations

Chips and Dip

There are very few things in life which I excel at. One of them is making guacamole. My talent spurs from my complete and utter disdain for the garbage that some Mexican restaurants serve. Guacamole should be chunky not a smooth puree. Think more "avocado salad" and less "something that can be shot out of a caulking gun." You will need only 5 ingredients.

Guacamole

• 4 Hass avocados (do NOT use those low fat Zutanos with the smooth exterior skin)
• 5 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 1 small yellow onion
• 2 jalapenos
• 2 limes

This so easy even a caveman could do it. Chop onion and garlic just enough so that you can fit them into a food processor. Same with the jalapenos (I like to discard the seeds). Add the juice of 1 lime. Salt and pepper to taste. Whiz that up till you get a consistency that looks like this:

Set that mixture aside. Split the avocados from top to bottom. (The easiest way is to insert your knife till you hit the pit, and then rotate the avocado around your knife.) Remove the pits but do not discard. Then take the avocado in your palm and with a butter knife make cross-hatches through the flesh:

Then simply take a spoon and scoop out the flesh into a bowl. Season the avocados with salt and pepper and the half of the juice of the remaining lime. Once you have skinned and sliced all of the avocados, I like to run through them with a potato masher - but only once because we want to keep this chunky. Then add your onion/garlic/jalapeno mixture to the bowl and stir to combine. Add the avocado pits back to the bowl (helps prevent oxidization), cover with plastic wrap pressed down onto the guacamole, and refrigerate for at least one hour.

Infinitely better than the pre-made stuff. And remember: the avocado is a vegetable. I don't give a damn what Weight Watchers says.