This is not a cookie recipe. Or a muffin. Or candy. Or anything that would be classified as a dessert. This is guacamole. Yes, that’s right. I am more than just salted cookies. I can cook, sautee, grill, crockpot, appetize, pizza, tapa and much more. And don’t worry I know what you’re thinking. Why in the hell has this girl not been wifed up yet? I ask myself that question frequently. But enough about me, let’s get to the guac of the matter. With all my work travel, it’s been a little challenging to keep up with the weekly cookie/baking posts. Mostly because of logistics to coordinate getting all the cookies to someone else to eat before I fly Monday morning. But when I am home, I’m always cooking since I can’t stand to eat out when I’m home after a week of traveling where I have no choice but to eat out every single meal. So I got to thinking. If I just started to write down the recipes of the things I cook when I’m home, I would definitely be able to blog more frequently, and showcase my many other skillz in the kitchen and on the grill. Maybe I limited myself with being branded The Salted Cookie, but it’s catchy and there are plenty of other blogs with names about baking or sweets that also include recipes that they cook. So get onboard kids, because all of those recipes you see me cooking for my friends on the weekends are coming to a blog near you (… this blog … just to be clear.)

So what better way than to kick off my non-cookie posts than with America’s lifeblood: Guacamole. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t like guacamole, and if they don’t like guacamole you probably shouldn’t be friends with them anyway. Guacamole is one of the few things in the world that people have no qualms paying extra for. So much so, you can buy t-shirts and tank tops that say “I know Guac is Extra.” Imma gonna need to get me one of those.

I’ve been on this taco kick lately. Not just on Tuesdays, but any day of the week. I had my friend Ania over for dinner a week ago and we grilled some tilapia tacos and grilled mango. I’m down the Cape for Memorial day weekend, and we were having company over for dinner last night so I offered to do the cooking for the group so that I could experiment with some new taco recipes. Which meant, guac was needed. And it was the centerpiece of last night’s dinner. 

The hardest part about guacamole is making sure you have avocados that are ripe and ready to go. Most times you need to wait 2-3 days after picking them up from the store when they are hard as a rock. Luckily yesterday I squeezed a bunch of avocados in Stop + Shop and found 4 that were just about ready to be turned into guac. I have two secrets to my basic guac recipe: an immersion blender and fresh parmesan cheese. Which I guess are no longer secrets since you’re now in my circle of trust. 

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients:

• 4 ripe avocados
• 1/2 medium red onion, diced
• 1 fresh jalapeño pepper, minced
• 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
• Juice from 2 limes (about 2 tbsp)
• Salt + Pepper to taste
• 4 Roma (or plum) tomatoes, seeded and diced
• 2 tablespoons fresh parmesan cheeseStep 1: Remove the core from the avocados and squeeze avocado into a big bowl. No need to cut it up all nice and fancy here. Use an immersion blender to cream the avocado until smooth. If you don’t have one, you can use two forks to smash it up.

Step 2: Dice the red onion. Cut the jalapeno pepper in half, remove the seeds and mince it up very fine. Throw both the pepper and red onion into the avocado bowl.

One tip here, wash your hands immediately after handling the jalapeño pepper or you’ll make the mistake of touching your eye later and screaming bloody murder. I always have this Crabtree + Evelyn Cook’s citrus handwash in my kitchen which helps to clean everything off your hands when cooking. (Also, what a beautiful website C+E has. Amiright?)

Step 3: Chop up the fresh cilantro and add to the mix. Juice two limes (microwave for 10 seconds or roll them before to optimize the juice output) and then stir up all of the ingredients so far in the big bowl. Add some salt and pepper to taste. 

Step 4: Seed and dice four Roma or plum tomatoes. Use a spatula to fold them in. 

Step 5: Now for the secret ingredient. I learned this tip from my friend Stacey a few summers ago and can’t make guac without it. Sprinkle in 2 tablespoons of fresh parmesan cheese. You can use Kraft if that’s all you have on hand, but you’ll notice a big flavor difference by using the good stuff instead. Give it one last good mix with the spatula until all of the ingredients are evenly incorporated. At this point you’ll need to taste test. 

Sometimes you might need to adjust the flavors a bit by adding in a little extra cilantro, salt + pepper, or lime juice. And sometimes, you just nail it on on the first try. Crushed it. 

I know I went a little overboard with the photos in this post but dayyummm the lighting in my parent’s kitchen is amazing. I barely had to edit any of these photos. Maybe I’ll start doing all of my food photoshoots here.

So I kept my promise to you that I would get my shiz together and start posting more, so you’re welcome. The nice thing about the more frequent posts is that it’s easier for me to remember what I did in the past few days to recap.

Firstly, I decided that on my third week of no work travel, I really needed to try to get back into a routine. And by routine, I mean simply to start showering and putting real pants on again. So I went into the office 3 days this week. And on Wednesday morning I was rushing like an insane person to make it into the office for an 8am meeting … only to realize that the meeting didn’t actually start until 8:30. The silver lining was that then I had time to go to my favorite place – Flour Bakery – and get a giant iced coffee to help kick my brain into gear. Another benefit of going into work was seeing actual human beings again (outside of the random people doing house projects for me). So I grabbed lunch with my friend Allie at Snappy Sushi on Newbury Street. Their sushi is fresh to death and all of it comes in brown rice which is great. Allie and I are heading to Portland, Oregon this coming weekend for the Indulge Conference which we needed to discuss important logistical details such as vacation hashtags and what kind of shoes we are going to bring. Thursday we had a Boston office outing for work at Fenway Park. Despite being a Yankees fan and having a strong family-bred dislike for the Red Sux, I still enjoy the game of baseball and Fenway is a pretty cool place. The view from right field was not too shabby at all. Fun Fact, when I was a little kid playing tee-ball on a team full of boys, I couldn’t tell the difference between right and left field. Anytime another kid on the team would ask Coach Garrity which one was left field, he would yell at them like they were a giant dumb dumb. However when I would ask, he would nicely walk me out into the outfield to show me where to stand. And then of course I endured some 93/Route 3 traffic Thursday night because I just could not wait to get down to the Cape to kick off summer. Granted today it’s about 45 degrees and windy as all heck, but there’s no snow, so I am happy. We went to Cooke’s Seafood for lunch yesterday so I could get my first lobstah roll of the season. And dang was it delicious. Maybe Lobster Guac will be one of my next experiments for the blog.

So I will of course still be blogging about desserts and cookies, but definitely incorporating more cooking posts in here as well. If there’s anything you want me to make, just email me @ thesaltedcookie@gmail.com. Or Instagram me, Facebook message me, text, carrier pigeon, smoke signal …. whatever strikes your fancy. Happy Memorial Day!