SoCal Guacamole (+ a Giveaway!)

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I've been wanting to share this recipe with you guys for a while and just never got around to it.  This is what I call my "famous guacamole".  Or maybe I should call it my "magic guacamole".  The thing about this guacamole is... everyone likes it!  I've had many people tell me that they hate guacamole, but I ask them to try mine anyway, promising that they'll like it, and they always do.  I think the reason my guacamole is so good compared to others is because it's made with fresh ingredients, there are no preservatives in it, and it's got more to it than just avocado and a few seasonings.  I think many restaurants put Fruit Fresh in their guacs, which make it taste hideous. Sure, it makes the green color last longer, but it's not worth it.  Use your fresh lime juice and eat it as soon as you make it.

I was inspired to make my guacamole recently due to my Virtual Potluck group's partnership with  SoCal Avocados.  I received a whole case of avocados from them to enjoy and use in recipes as I wished, and then share those recipes with you.  The box I received contained a variety of different avocados - here are their descriptions:




Haas - Haas Avocados have a wonderful rich, buttery, nutty flavor. Grown year round, ships and stores well. Thick skin turns from green to a purplish black when ripe. Flesh is pale green with a creamy texture. Oval shaped fruit from 5 to 14 ounces. Medium seed size. Peels easily. (These are usually the ones you find in your grocery store.)


  




Pinkerton - This variety looks like a long pear with pebbly green skin. The skin darkens when the fruit is ripe. The flesh is a creamy pale green with a small seed. This avocado is available winter through spring.










Bacon - A lighter taste with a yellow/green color. Smooth thin green skin. Large seed. Peels easily. Average weight is 10 to 18 ounces. Ripe when yields slightly to pressure. Originated in Buena Park, California by James Bacon. Introduced in 1951.








Fuerte - Great taste. Creamy pale green flesh. Picked November through March. Smooth skin with medium thickness. Medium seed size. Peels easily. Pear shaped weighing 9 to 16 ounces. Ripe when yields to slight pressure. Skin is green when ripe.







I can tell you that all of the varieties I received were delicious.  Some ripened faster than others.  They were all different sizes.  The Bacon was ready first.  It was huge!  Pretty much the size of two small Haas avocados.  I found it to be the mildest tasting of the bunch.  You can see in the pic below that the Bacon was just bigger and fatter.  The other two were Fuertes.  These are the avocados I used in my guacamole.
 


The Pinkertons were great because they were the smallest ones.  I would say they were the size of about 2/3 of a Haas avocado.  They were a more narrow shape, rather than fat and round like the rest of them.  I used the Pinkertons solely for slicing up and throwing into my dinner salads.  They were perfect for that because one Pinkerton was just enough for two dinner salads.

Here's a pic of an unripened Haas avocado, which is the type of Avocado you'll usually see in your grocery store.  When the skin turns a black color and it's soft to the touch, it's ripe.  You can see the black color of the skin in the second picture below.





SoCal Avocados are grown on a 25-acre ranch called Tierra Rejada Ranch, where you'll find mature trees mostly of the Haas variety but also with a few acres of Bacon, Fuerte, and a newer variety called Pinkerton. There are also a few trees of the Gwen variety and a couple of McArthurs. All of the trees are irrigated by individual mini-sprinklers. In general, the trees flower in the spring producing a crop in the following year.  Find out more about their ranch HERE.

SoCal Avocados also offers an Avocado of the Month service where they deliver 20 avocados a month to your door for $30 per month. 

They also have a page on their website with some info on the health benefits of the avocado and how it can help you during your diet.  Did you know that avocados have the highest dietary fiber content of all fruits? The USDA National Nutrient Database reveals that one avocado provides 13.5 g of dietary fiber and 322 calories.  Find out more healthy benefits of avocados HERE.

Want even more info?  Visit SoCal Avocados on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.



So after all that, I'll bet your craving some avocados, huh? 

Well, how about a chance to win a box of 12 avocados sent directly to your house? 

You can keep them in the fridge so they don't all ripen at once on you and just take a couple out at a time and allow them to ripen.  You'll be surprised how long they last! 

To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment below telling me which variety of avocado you'd like to try the most, why you love avocados or your favorite way to enjoy them.  If you win, you will receive 12 avocados of available varieties.


If you'd like extra entries, do the following and come back here and comment below letting me know you did one or all of the following:

• Follow @SoCalAvocados on Twitter

• Tweet about this giveaway by tweeting the following: "I just entered to win 12 avocados sent to my door from @SoCalAvocados @TaratheFoodie! Enter here: http://tarathefoodie.blogspot.com/"

This giveaway will end on Sunday, Feb. 26th at 6pm est and I will choose 1 winner from the comments below using random.org.

This contest is now closed.  Congratulations to Cara Baute!

Good luck, and find out how I made my guacamole after the jump!

To make this guacamole, remove the pit and skin from the avocados, then chop it up into small pieces.  Squirt half a lime's worth of juice all over the chopped avocado and sprinkle it with sea salt.  Add this avocado mixture to a glass bowl.





Next grab a small handful of fresh cilantro, wash it, dry it in a paper towel, then chop it up and add it to the bowl.




Also add finely chopped red onion.



 


  Take one roma tomato...

 


Cut it in half, then squeeze the guts out of it.  This prevents your guacamole from being too saucy.






Add the chopped roma tomato to the bowl.  If you have a jalapeno or serrano pepper, remove the seeds if you wish, then finely chop that too and throw it into the bowl, but the hot pepper is not necessary.  If you don't have any hot peppers on hand, like I didn't, add some red pepper flake.





Here's my secret ingredient: Tabasco Green Pepper Sauce.  Put about 8 shakes of this into the bowl.  It gives the guacamole a little zip and tang that no other guacamole has.







Sprinkle a little more sea salt over the top of this mixture, then mash it all up with a fork, eventually stirring the mixture up so everything is well combined, creating your guacamole.





That's about it!  I put together some measurements for you just for the sake of giving you a recipe, but really you should put more or less of whatever you like in this to make it your own.  Remember, taste it and add more of something if needed.

I hope you enjoy this guacamole and make it often.  It's a great, healthy snack any time of the year!  Oh, and here's a tip to keep it from browning if you don't eat it all in one sitting...  cover the leftovers with plastic wrap, pushing the plastic wrap down into the bowl so it presses down on the top of the guacamole.  This prevents the oxygen from getting to the guac, preventing it from browning.  This will usually work for 1 day, but you'll want to finish it the next day or toss it.

Another tip to speed up ripening time of your avocados: put them in a paper bag and close the top of the bag.  It will ripen a lot faster this way, I believe within the day.  To slow down the ripening process, pop them in the fridge.  You can even freeze avocados if you want to completely halt ripening until you have more time to use them.

Visit SoCal Avocados for these tips and more!



Make sure you check out the other Virtual Potluck bloggers to see what kind of avocado creations they made and to increase your chances to win!  They're giving away avocados, too!

Make your first stop our host blog, where you'll find a round-up of what everyone made:
Miss in the Kitchen and on Facebook here.







...then visit everyone else and increase your chances to win:


Diabetic Foodie and on Facebook here.
Farmgirl Gourmet and on Facebook here.
Not Rachael Ray and on Facebook here.


30AEATS and on Facebook here.
Foodhunters Guide to Cuisine and on Facebook here.
Thyme in our Kitchen and on Facebook here.
Cooking with Books and on Facebook here.
Goov-y Foody and on Facebook here.

Cookistry and on Facebook here.