Guacamole on Sunday Funday

Fancy and I were invited to my parents house for snacks and movie night.
Poor Fancy was sick, and spent the morning and most of the afternoon in bed.
While he was out, I cleaned and made an Irish Soda bread (using his Grandmother's famous recipe) for St Patrick's Day.

Originally I had planned to just bring a bag of chips to the snack-fest at Dad's. I just wasn't sure how ambitious I would be.
I decided to make some easy guacamole since I discovered that I had all of the ingredients.
(I've been on an avocado kick lately, generally making an egg stuffed baked avocado, but that post is for another day.)

There aren't many recipes that are easier to do than guacamole.

You only need a few basic ingredients.
I only had one Haas avocado, so I made a small batch.
You can chop things by hand, or toss it all in any food processor.
I use the Ninja because I'm a sucker for infomercials, and it actually is a good chopper!
One ripe tomato (Roma is my favorite, but alas I only had a "vine ripened" basic tomato) quartered.

 I used about 1/3 of a medium sized yellow onion, but you can use more if you're a big onion fan.

Add some chopped garlic, I used about 1 teaspoon for my small batch.

Cut the lime in half and juice in directly into the chopper.

Cut the avocado in half and scoop it into the chopper. Really clean out all of that avocadoey goodness from the peal.

Add salt and pepper to taste, and blend up!

See how easy? What did that take...5 minutes?


At this point I took a little tangent to set up my avocado pit in some water.
It never works for me, but I always try. Now that we're bordering on spring here in Upstate New York, I feel optimistic about it this time.

 You'll want to wash any leftover avocado off of the seed before putting it to set in the water.
Otherwise it gets moldy...first hand knowledge here.

 I really scrubbed it well this time. I didn't use soap, because I didn't know if that would do a bad thing to the seed. Take some toothpicks. Three works well, though the last time I tried this I ended up having to use 4 because I didn't stagger them well and the pit kept flipping upside down!

You'll want to use a shallow bowl, or cup. In my case I'm using a gnarly old teacup that never gets any love.
Set the pit suspended over the cup of water with the base of the seed (the flatter part) in the water and the top (more pointed part) in the air.

Then place it in a sunny location! This is about the sunniest in my apartment. My plants spend the winter clinging to life clustered around one window that gets "some" sun. Fancy and I plan on buying a house once we're married and hopefully I'll have a few places I can put them.

Supposedly it takes about 8 weeks for the seed to sprout, and in that time you'll need to add water, and change it out if it gets gross. My mother is a science teacher and gets pretty upset at this whole avocado thing. Neither of us have any luck growing them this way which makes her wonder how they propagate in the wild? Surely they don't need toothpicks and a cup of water. Do they have to be in a puddle? I'm sure the internet has the answer, but speculation is more fun.

*Side note. The guacamole was a dud at the snack party. I forget sometimes that I have a family of picky eaters. I was the only one who "likes" guacamole, though I did convince a few to try it and they said it was ok. This still did not entice them to actually eat any. I'll just eat the rest for breakfast!