Guacamole

When the cravings for Guacamole come, they must be answered.

I love avocados. The pale green flesh, the rich buttery taste, the thwack sound the pit makes when I hit it with my knife. I like it sliced in salads or spread between two pieces of buttered toast with a little salt and pepper. But I really love it in guacamole with a handful of salty chips on the side.

The Ingredients

Sure, it’s high in fat, but I’m slightly mollified by the fact it’s a good fat and there are lots of vitamins and potassium in avocados. I also need that information to justify my decision to eat guacamole for dinner. (It’s flimsy justification, but justification nonetheless.)

The Ingredients

I like to make mine by cubing the avocados while still in their skins and then scooping the chunks out with a spoon before gently stirring with the other ingredients, so the meaty fruit retains some of its bite instead of becoming a paste. (You’ll see below that the instructions are slightly different. Obviously, do as you feel is best.)

Dicing the avocado

Red Onion

Ready to serve

It should come as no surprise that this recipe comes from my mentor, the Barefoot Contessa.

Guacamole

  • Four ripe Haas avocados (I just buy whatever is in the store)
  • 3 tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice — one lemon
  • 8 dashes Tabasco sauce
  • 1/2 cup small-diced red onion
  • 1 large clove garlic, minced (I use a rasp — best kitchen gadget ever — so there are no large chunks of garlic)
  • 1 tsp. kosher salt
  • 1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 medium tomato, seeded and small-diced

Cut the avocados in half, remove the pits, and scoop the flesh out of their shells into a large bowl. (I use my hands.) Immediately add the lemon juice, Tabasco, onion, garlic, salt and pepper and toss well. Using a sharp knife, slice through the avocados in the bowl until they are finely diced. Add the tomatoes. Mix well and taste for salt and pepper.

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Lime Sugar Cookies

Is it ridiculous that I bought a recipe book solely for a basil salad dressing?

Does it make it better if I explain that the salad dressing goes on one of my all-time favourite salads from a vegetarian/vegan restaurant in Victoria that I must visit each time I’m back in that city? (Especially interesting considering my carnivore ways.)

Nevermind, it was because of the cookbook that I was led to this fabulous cookie. The sweetness of sugar and tang of lime in neat cookie form. I love all things citrus and these certainly satisfy the craving.

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Oddly, I never went to Rebar while I lived in Victoria, which I now realize is a huge shame. Still, I get back to the capital city twice a year, so I can keep my cravings for their salad relatively in check. (Hmmm. Perhaps I should blog about the salad dressing….)

Anyway, when I found their recipe book in a store one day, I bought it immediately. When I got home (as I tried to justify the unnecessary purchase of *yet another* cookbook), I started to flip through and inevitably found a bunch of recipes I wanted to try, including the one for the Lime Sugar Cookies.

Sure, it calls for pepitas (pumpkin seeds) and, sure, there was no way I was going to have those on hand and there was no way I was going to buy them. (Surely, the whole point of cookies is that, in general, there is nothing healthy in the mix?) So, I forewent that step and moved ahead.

Then, on the second time making them, I made a very happy mistake. I doubled the recipe, but then didn’t fully double the amount of flour. As a result, the cookies came out a bit denser and with a nice chew, as opposed to the somewhat cake-y versions previously. I now purposely make that mistake. (And, yes, I still don’t bother with the pepitas.)

The one thing to really be aware of with these cookies is that they probably won’t look fully baked, even if they’re ready to be pulled out of the oven. They’ll look puffed, but still very pale with only a hint of golden at the edges. Once you pull them out and they start to cool, they’ll fall slightly and get the nice sort of cracked top to them.

It was raining today when I made these before going in to work. The grey skies made me a bit homesick for Vancouver. But this light and tangy cookies were cheerful, a little taste of summer.

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Here is the recipe as printed in the Rebar Modern Food Cookbook. My notes and changes are in italics.

Lime Sugar Cookies

  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/4 cup unsalted butter
  • 1 tbsp. vegetable oil
  • zest of 1 lime
  • 1 large egg
  • 2 tbsp. lime juice
  • 1 3/4 cups unbleached flour (I use all purpose)
  • 1/4 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds), toasted and roughly chopped
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 350F. Cream the sugar, oil, butter and lime zest until light and fluffy. Add egg and lime juice, and beat together to incorporate.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, pepitas, baking soda and salt. Add the dry mix to the wet mix and stir together well.

Using a 2 oz. ice cream scoop or forming 3 tbsp balls (or, in my case, a big rounded soup spoon), drop the batter onto a cookie sheet, leaving space in between to allow the cookies to spread during baking. Flatten each slightly and sprinkle with granulated sugar. Bake for eight minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

As I said above, I always double this recipe (11 cookies is not enough), but instead of using 3 1/2 cups of flour, I only use 3. Feel free to try it both ways.

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