Fresh Guacamole Dip {Healthy}

I am an adventurous eater.  Behind my adventurous mouth is an adventurous spirit, and I'm always the first person in any room to try a new food.  Whole baby octopus?  Yes, please!  Fish eggs?  Bring it.  Sushi?  Shut the front door.  Fresh guacamole?  Forget about it.  I was convinced, for whatever reason, that I hated guacamole and avocados.  Oh, what a silly girl I was!  Luckily my parents took me to Mexico several years ago, and made me try the fresh guacamole our waiter made at the table in front of us.  I was in heaven.  Or as close to heaven as I've been.  I'm fairly certain that heaven will have fresh guacamole dip and macaroni & cheese.  (I did, after all, ask my childhood pastor before I got baptized, if he was certain mac & cheese would be in heaven. ;))  Oops.  I'm getting side-tracked!  Back to the guacamole...my parents made me try some, FRESH, and it was amazing.  So....if you think you don't like guacamole, let me assure you, that you could be wrong.  You WANT to be wrong, trust me!  Look at how many vitamins and minerals and nutrients you can get from an avocado! 

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Based on my brief time spent vacationing in Mexico several summers ago, here is how I make homemade, delicious, tangy guacamole!

{First..you need a ripe avocado!}  It is difficult to tell if you've picked a good avocado just by looking at the coloring.  A perfectly ripe avocado is not squishy or soft.  It's not super-firm, either.  There is a right way and a wrong way to check for a ripe avocado..and you need to do this before purchasing to avoid bringing home a bruised avocado.  

When you squeeze it in the palm of your hand, it should feel firm but not tough.  DO NOT squeeze it with your finger tips....that bruises the avocado and makes it mushy and gross.  Moving on...   

Three Grape Tomatoes, One Lime, One Avocado, One Yellow Onion)

Dice up some of the onion.  (NOT the whole onion.)  You can totally leave out the onion if you don't like onions.  I love onions, but I only use a little.  

Dice up the tomatoes.  

Cut the avocado in half.  Avocados do have a rather large pit, so you'll want to cut around it.  It's very important that you use a super-fancy Styrofoam plate.  It enhances the flavor and experience.  Fact.    

Using a spoon, scoop the avocado halves out of the skin.  

Remove the pit, mash up the avocado in a bowl, and mix in the diced tomatoes and onion.  Cut the lime into fourths, and squeeze all of the juice out of the lime.  I like to pull some of lime pulp out and mix it into my guacamole.  It makes it tangy and tart and...well...I love limes!    

Mix it all up!  Salt to taste.  Serve with tortilla chips!  {If you are trying to be healthy...I recommend Baked! Scoops.}

 

Have you ever tried guacamole before?  Ever made it?