For the Love of Tex-Mex

Have you ever craved a food so much that you did whatever it took to get it in your mouth? I have.  Don't you think that with a post all about guacamole that I'd say I did some irrational act one night in hopes of finding the most spectacular guac on planet earth? Well, I haven't.  However, I just might have done some crazy things in my life in order to get some c-h-o-c-o-l-a-t-e on my screaming taste-buds.

I was an adult....say about age 25....before I even liked the taste of guacamole in my mouth.  Since it seemed the thing to do when out on the town eating Mexican food, I so wanted to be a big girl and eat it, too, but it was so slimy and ewww, gross that I couldn't even swallow the nasty stuff.

Then there was the day that a party broke out in my office and someone just happened to bring some green goo in with the tortilla chips so I thought I'd be a big girl and try again.  This time something magical happened to my once offended senses and all of a sudden.....I was addicted to guacamole.   Don't ask me what it was that made the change except maybe the homemade kind I had tried wasn't so slimy like the restaurant kinds I'd forced in before.

My precious mother-in-love is a domestic queen and personally knows June Cleaver. Really, she is great at being a wonderful hostess with the mostest, cleaning guru and a know-what-to-do-about-it gal in the kitchen.  I discovered that I enjoyed her guac the best so she told me how to make about ten years ago and I haven't liked any other much since learning to make it myself.

The first must is slicing open just-ripe-enough avocados.  This is a trick and somewhat of a crap shoot (that term really makes me giggle.....kinda like a crappie fish) if you ask me.  I know how to pick ripe avocados in the produce section, but the tricky part is thinking of what night they will be eaten and how many days until then and how much ripening time is needed versus how hard & green they are in the store or how soft & dark brown, almost black they are.

Too smushy is gross.  Too hard is just a disappointment because they don't smush well, stay chunky & hard and really have no flavor.  Then there are the few times that an avocado is cut open only to find weird brown stringy things laced throughout the entire fruit.  Gag.  You did know that an avocado is a fruit, right?  It has a pit. It's a fruit, high in fat, but super-uber good for you in the right portions.  Ha.  Portions?  With gobs of perfect tortilla chips, I do believe a proper portion is a cup.  Or two.

My guacamole consists of smushing up 2-3 avocados, sprinkling the mashed up mess with lime juice, a guesstimate of garlic powder, onion powder, salt and some dried onions.  I don't measure, but if you try it just toss out what doesn't look like too much.  How's that for accuracy?  The big no-no for me is NO TOMATOES. Barfy-barf.  I love cooked tomatoes, but have tried raw a million times and really can't find a place for them in my food economy. So no toms, but the beautiful gem that is last to enter is.....drumroll.........cilantro. Yum.  It must be cut up or torn apart for the scrumptious aroma to infiltrate the guac.  Can I get an "amen"?

I am in no way a proper foodie like the gobs of true foodies that have covered the internet like a swarm of bees to honey.  I just wanted to share this yummy recipe....if you can really call it that with no measurements.....with y'all.  I'm a Texas girl through & through therefore, Tex-Mex is on our menu either at home or at a restaurant at the very least once a week.  My other Texans reading this will attest that once a week is low-balling it.  Even better with Tex-Mex is a Dr. Pepper with a squeeze of lime. Oh my.  Alas, tonight I had water.


And for the STAR of the show: