Guacamole: A VegOut Inspired Love Letter

Guacamole is amazing for so many reasons. Here are a few of my personal favorites: It’s DELICIOUS, it’s easy to make so also-- hard to screw up. You can dip things into it, you can plop it on top of things, or you can just grab a fork/spoon/finger and eat it all by itself.

Guacamole is also magical. When I make a meal for my kids I often put sliced avocado on their plates. Half of the time they just eat it without comment and the other half I get a “I don’t like avocados, REMEMBER?” That’s when I feel like reminding them they happily ate avocados two days ago for lunch, but, you know, pick your battles. I take their plates, scrape the avocado into a bowl and mash it with a fork. Here’s where the magic happens…  I sometimes honestly don’t add one thing, I just mash them, put it back on their plates and then my kitchen blows up with all kinds of “Oh, GUACAMOLE! I love this. It’s the best EVER.” So there’s something we can all agree on.

Making guacamole is pretty fool proof and almost every recipe you see will offer a measurement and then say “or to taste” because it’s really about what you like. When you have a recipe like that it is always a good one to plan ahead and get your kids involved. The only special tool I would recommend is a potato masher for young kids. It tends to be easier than a fork for them to handle and mash with.

Step 1: mash

First things first: Find some medium sized non-breakable bowls that your kids can go to town on with a fork or a masher. Next set out a big selection of things they can add and let them get busy. That’s what my kids love to do. Some ideas for things you can experiment with when you make your own guac:  kosher salt, fresh cracked pepper, red onion, white onion, green onion, onion powder, tomatoes, cilantro, jalapeno, lime juice, lemon juice, minced garlic, garlic powder, cumin, cayenne or your favorite hot sauce.

Step 2: sprinkle, switch to fork

Step 3 : SQUEEEEEEZE

Even though I have a recipe, in real life I never follow the same recipe twice. I see what I have in the fridge, throw in a pinch of this or that until it tastes just right. Make sure and keep some extra veggies on hand, because (another magical quality) guacamole is a vegetable (and also technically a fruit) that you can dip other vegetables in. Pure genius. We like to put out sweet peppers, carrots, celery, tomato slices, hollowed out cherry tomatoes, raw and roasted cauliflower, and the list goes on. If you have these out while the kids are busy mashing, they automatically have something to dip and try out their creations.

Step 4: Dump

Here are two of my favorite guacamole combos. The one I make most often for the kids is quick and easy. The other one is great when you have a group and all of the ingredients on hand. I cut the quick recipe down to 1 avocado portion so you can multiply by the number of avocados you use. The other needs a few more to back up the fresh garlic and jalapeno. Both recipes use large hass avocados that will be close to the size of your hand from wrist to mid fingers.

Quick and Easy Guacamole

1 large haas avocado
¼ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp maldon flaked salt or ¼ tsp of regular kosher salt
a few cranks of fresh pepper
1 to 2 tsp of lime juice

Throw it all in a bowl and mash. Taste and adjust flavors as needed.

Party Guacamole

3 large haas avocados
1 clove of garlic, minced
¼ of a red onion, finely chopped
2 roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
2-3 tablespoons of cilantro, chopped
1 medium jalapeno, seeded and chopped
1 tsp fresh cracked pepper
3 tsp maldon flaked salt or 1 ½ tsp regular kosher salt
1 lime, juiced (should be 2 tablespoons of juice)

Throw it all in a bowl and mash. Taste and adjust flavors as needed.

If you ever find yourself with fresh pico de gallo, you can make the easiest guacamole in the world by throwing it on top of fresh avocados and mashing away. 

My last bit of guacamole love is reserved for how much it helps me introduce new foods to my kids, making it a perfect tool when you VegOut with your family. Certain foods that seem a little different are much friendlier when you can dip them in guacamole. It helps us get past that initial new appearance or strong flavor hurdle.  Get creative with your guacamole and have fun with your kids in the kitchen. 

On the Side: Roasted Cabbage Rounds & Garlic Stuffed Roasted Artichoke

During our 30 day VegOut experience, I did a lot of roasting. Two things were absolutely new and so amazing. They generated a lot of interest and question on the instagram account, so I wanted to feature the full recipes here. Short and sweet. Here we go.

Roasted Cabbage Rounds

Every time we got a produce delivery this winter, there was a cabbage. We would sautee it, put it in soup, smother it, and then we were just kind of like.... what else can we do with all this stupid cabbage? I went to my trusty friend, the internet, and searched for a recipe. My gal Martha gave me this little gem. Her recipe called for caraway or fennel seeds. I had neither so I did the rounds simply with salt and pepper.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon plus 2 more tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 medium head green cabbage, cut into 1-inch-thick rounds (we used purple cabbage)
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1 teaspoon caraway or fennel seeds (we did not have, so we did not use)

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush a rimmed baking sheet with 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil. Place 1 medium head green cabbage, cut into 1-inch-thick rounds, in a single layer on sheet and brush with 2 tablespoons oil. Season with coarse salt and ground pepper and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon caraway or fennel seeds. Roast until cabbage is tender and edges are golden, 40 to 45 minutes.

The end result.

 They looked SO amazing plated. You would think I could have gotten a pic of that, but nope.

Garlic Stuffed Roasted Artichoke

I was SO excited we got more artichokes in our last delivery because I am going to keep making this until there are no artichokes left on the earth. That is not an exaggeration. 

I found this recipe at Pinch My Salt. She goes through the entire process step by step with great photos and even a video. Clearly she is more more thorough than I am. Enjoy my rendition below. For the real thing, click here. 

Ingredients:

• Artichokes
• EVOO
• Salt
• Lemon, about a half per artichoke
• Garlic, 2-3 cloves per artichoke
• Heavy Duty Foil, one large square per artichoke

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Here are my amazing artichokes from Farmhouse Delivery:

First you want to slice off the top third of the artichoke. It's not wasteful, it's all rough stuff you wouldn't eat anyway. Don't tell that to my friend K though, who came to our house one time and was eating whole artichoke leaves, wondering why they were so chewy. We like to tell that story a lot. Then, cut off the stem at the base of the artichoke. After you have done these things they look happy and fancy, like this:

Next you are going to get out your foil and cut off a square large enough to wrap the artichoke in. Drizzle some EVOO on the foil and place your artichoke in there. Take 2-3 garlic cloves and SHOVE them into that artichoke. Next time I do this I am going to try opening it up a little more and seeing exactly how much garlic can fit in there. 

Squeeze the juice from half a lemon on top of the artichoke and into all the little nooks. Sprinkle with salt, drizzle a little more EVOO and you have this:

Repeat for each artichoke. Then wrap them up like little foil covered artichoke presents and put them on a baking sheet. Pop them into the oven like so:

Small artichokes (ours were) are done in an hour, medium in an hour and fifteen minutes, and supersize are done in an hour and a half. When your timer goes off you open up this little gift:

And how gorgeous is the side view?

While I was not so patiently waiting for the artichokes to cool I popped out the garlic and some Finn Crisps and this happened:

This was so amazing. Both of them were a hit with our 3 year old. Cabbage has a great sweet undertone when you roast it, and L loves the artichoke hearts. We had it as a side, but you could easily do this as an appetizer or all on it's own. My former go to artichoke recipe was steaming and then dipping in a butter garlic sauce. THIS is a whole new world. No sauce needed. 

Enjoy!!

RT

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