When I was young, I would never eat an avocado.  Yucky green squishy stuff!  But I did like to look at them.  I have a very vivid picture in my mind of sitting in my high school classroom, gazing out the window at one perfect avocado hanging from a branch right outside the window.  And gazing and gazing at it.

But now that I’m older and wiser, I love eating them.

My husband taught me a few tips on how to tell if they are ready to buy and eat.See that little brown belly button?  Ha ha, it’s the end of the stem, well, anyways, you can flick it out with your finger and see a peek of what’s inside.  So if it’s light green and fresh looking…go for it!  If it’s dark green and stiff looking, don’t buy it!

When they are ready to eat, they should be fairly soft when you lightly press the outside.  They should look darker greenish, even blackish and a bit wrinkly on the outside.  Too hard, and bright shiny green on the outside, and they are not ripe enough!

Henry showed me how to slice one open, right in half, then whack the knife into the seed (pit) and give it a quick twist, thus yanking out the pit easily.  Oh yeah, don’t even try and peel it!  Do this with the shell or skin on!  Then after the pit is out, you can use your knife to score the inside of each half, kind of in a tic tac toe or plaid pattern, then easily squeeze the cubes out of the skin.  (Am I explaining this right?  I didn’t take photos of this process!)  No messy peeling and slippery slicing!!

(The photo above has hard unripe avocados…with a little sign I made for our Cinco de Mayo celebration.  They took a few more days to ripen up enough to eat)

 

This last trip to Guatemala, I learned another secret for the preparation of avocados!! (for the preparation of guacamol in particular! I mentioned that we say “guacamol” a lot in Guatemala, as opposed to “guacamole”, right?) My sister-in-law told me about it, and said that she and her sister had tested it out to see if it really would help delay the avocado from turning brown.

The secret is: to let none of the avocado touch metal!  So only use wooden or plastic or glass utensils & bowls in the preparation of guacamol.  Here is my little photographic step-by-step I took while making guacamol last night for supper:

Rip or squeeze open the avocado, don’t cut it with a knife:Pull that little green alien apart!  Yes, it can be a bit messy….at least, I made a mess…Then squeeze/scrap it all into a bowl, and fish out the pits.  Start mashing it up with a wooden or plastic utensil.

I know Mexican guacamole has other ingredients, like onions and tomatos and garlic and such added, but this is the way I learned that it’s usually eaten in Guatemala.  So grab a lime or two and squeeze it in!  Add a few pinches (or tons) of salt and mix away.

Remember to use a wooden or plastic spoon for serving!!

  We love eating guacamol this way, and last night we tried out some “new” tortillas.  They were pretty ok, I guess.  They didn’t rip up like the usual corn tortillas we can get around here.

And that’s what I have learned about avocados!  I hope this helps you out a bit, the next time you feel like preparing these green fruit thingys.  If you have other “secrets” for avocados, I’d be interested to hear (read) them!!! 🙂

P.S. If you have never tried a fresh avocado, I hope this has encouraged you to take your life in your hands and try one out!  They really aren’t as bad as all that green squishiness looks!!!  (just put lots of lime and salt on them! haha!)