Awesome Avocado Dip

You know how Mexican restaurants always serve chips and salsa while you’re waiting for your food to come out? Well, awhile back, I went to a place that served a delicious green dip along with the salsa. It was tangy and creamy and I loved it. I swore I was going to figure out how to make my own. Well, I have finally gotten around to it.

Here’s what you’ll need: 

• 1 medium avocado
• ¼ cup sour cream
• ¼ cup green taco sauce
• 1 Tablespoon fresh squeezed lime juice
• ½ teaspoon salt
• Handful of cilantro leaves 

This recipe is so quick and simple, you are going to love it. First up, the avocado. Cut it in half around the pit. Then to remove that, tap it firmly with your knife to embed the edge of the blade.

Then just twist gently and it should come right out.

The pit is super slippery, so to get it off of the knife, wrap it in a paper towel and it should pull off pretty easily.

It isn’t strictly necessary, but I like to cut the avocado into little cubes before it goes into the blender so you don’t end up with a big chunk of it hiding under the blade. Using your knife, carefully slice it right inside its shell.

Scoop or squeeze the cubes into your blender.

Next up, the lime juice. Mine was really juicy, so I actually only ended up just using half. You’re shooting for about 1 Tablespoon of juice.

After that, add the salt.

I like La Victoria’s green taco sauce. I’m sure any kind of green salsa will work just fine if you’d prefer.

My sour cream was a bit of a heaping measure. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, this is not rocket science.

Last is the cilantro. I know there are some serious cilantro haters out there, so if you’re one of them, go ahead and leave it out. Personally, I love the stuff. It’s strong though, so a little goes a long way. Shoot for something like this.

Throw that into the blender.

Now, just add 2 Tablespoons of water, and that’s it!

Start the blender at a low speed and slowly increase it.

In probably 30 seconds, you’ll have a dip that is amazingly delicious!

And the cool thing is, unlike guacamole, which turns brown in almost not time, this dip stays a nice, bright green for days in the fridge. It’s fantastic!

What is your favorite thing to do with avocados?

Chocolate Perfection

As you probably know by now, laziness plays a fairly big role in my decision making process.  Because of this, I’ve never really bothered to temper my chocolate before using it for dipping.  Tempering is a process of heating and cooling chocolate in a specific way so that the cocoa butter crystals will… ok, getting too technical.  Basically, it makes it so that chocolate will be like it is when you buy it from the store.  It’s firm, doesn’t melt quickly when you touch it, and it has a nice snap.  Well, this week, I had to make lots of chocolates for hubby to take to work.  That meant not only would they be being sampled by lots of people but needed to be able to be at room temperature, and be handled, and still have a crisp snap when bitten. 

So I went on the internet machine and did some research on the specifics of chocolate tempering.  Then, because all the methods I found involved the use of a thermometer and being ridiculously finicky, that I would follow the same idea, but do it my way.  As little fuss as possible, and no thermometer other than my fingers and/or eyes.  I guess even when I’m not being lazy, I’m lazy.  To be honest, I’m not really sure why I even own a thermometer.  Ok, so here is my method for tempering chocolate. 

Chop your chocolate into small pieces.  Shaving it finely I actually found to work best, but didn’t get any pictures of it that way.  Set aside about 40% of the total. 

Using a double boiler to melt the chocolate will give you the most control.  Basically that just means placing a bowl over a pan that has an inch or so of simmering water in it. 

If you prefer, you can heat the chocolate in a microwave.  Either way, just be sure to stir frequently.  It’ll be a lumpy mess at first. 

But eventually it will become nice and smooth.  You want it to become fairly thin, but be careful not to let it get too hot.  Using the ol’ finger thermometer, (no that’s not some sort of euphemism, or if it is, I’m unaware of it.) it should never be uncomfortably warm.  Think hot tub temperature.

When it gets to that point, remove it from the heat.  Set the bowl on a towel to absorb the water from the outside.  Just one drop of water can ruin your whole batch of chocolate, so be careful not to get any in there.  Add ¾ of your reserved chocolate and gently stir it in. 

It should slowly melt into the warm chocolate.  When it has, test for temperature again.  The goal is for it to become cool enough that you can’t really feel a temperature difference when your finger touches it.  If it still feels even slightly warm, add more chocolate.  At this point, finely shaved is really the best option.  Continue to stir in chocolate until you have reached the proper temperature and then it’s time for a test.  Drizzle a little of the chocolate onto a piece of parchment. 

Within 3-5 minutes, it should set.  You should be able to touch it without leaving a noticeable fingerprint and it should break cleanly.  It won’t be all that snappy yet, but as it sits it will become increasingly firm.  When you’ve reached this stage, you’re ready to start dipping. 

So is it worth it?  Well, it does take a fair bit of extra time to get the chocolate ready, but yes, it’s worth it… even for me, laziness and all.  I will never dip anything without tempering again.     

What’s your favorite thing to dip in chocolate?