Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Ina Garten's (Barefoot's) Guacamole Salad, but a Bit Cheaper

I saw this recipe on Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network and thought it would be a great vegetarian meal for John and I to make. However, we tweaked a few things about it to our tastes and also made the dish less expensive.

You can find the original recipe here.

Our ingredients:


1 can black beans
1 can fire-roasted tomatoes
1-2 tbsp. fresh cilantro
1 small/medium red onion
1 clove garlic, minced
2 limes or lemons
1 jalapeno, diced
1 tsp. salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 green bell pepper
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
tortilla chips (optional)

Ok, this recipe is honestly so easy. It's basically putting a bunch of things in one bowl and then putting a few other things in another bowl and dumping the stuff in the other bowl into the first bowl.

First, drain and rinse ALL of the canned vegetables. In the case of the tomatoes, press the juices out gently with your fingers. There really shouldn't be extra moisture because the dressing will make the salad moist enough.

Also, we used the roasted tomatoes here because John is a little iffy about tomatoes, but since these are roasted, they're nice and rich, and not really watery.

Anyway, dump all of those in a mixing bowl. Then de-stem the green bell pepper, cut into chunks and dump that in the bowl too. Besides using canned vegetables,

John and I used the green bell pepper because it's about $1 per pound cheaper than other bell peppers, and it tastes similar. If you want to use the more expensive ones though, go ahead.

Then dice up the red onion. If the teariness gets to you, stick your head in the freezer for a few seconds. It makes it go away. Anyway, dump the onion in there too, and mix everything together.




For the dressing, chop up the cilantro, and add as much as you want really. This is a lot of salad so you may find it needs more that 1 tbsp.

Apparently, Barefoot doesn't like cilantro, but I don't think guacamole is complete without it.

So, John had a lemon already, so we just used the juice of that and we bought a lime and squeezed that too.


To that, add the minced garlic, diced jalapeno, cilantro, olive oil, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper. Then, whisk together.

Next, cube up 3-4 avocados and dump them into the salad. We added more than the original recipe because we wanted it to really taste like guacamole. Make sure to add the avocados at the last minute because they go brown fast and you want them to be fresh. Then add the dressing and mix.


Then, if you want, crumble tortilla chips over the top to complete the guacamole flavor.

It's so easy, healthy, cheap, and reeeeaaaallllyyyy good.

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