Guacamole

Ingredients (starting):

6 avocados

1 tomato

3 stalks of green onion

1 handful of fresh cilantro leaves

1 lemon

Salt

Will probably need more ingredients to adjust flavor.

Peel avocados, remove seeds, and put into mixing bowl. Chop tomato, onion, and cilantro individually until they are very fine and then put them into mixing bowl. Cut lemon and squeeze juice into mixing bowl. Add a dash of salt. Mash all ingredients until they become a paste.

Here's the fun part: taste the guacamole; guess what is wrong. Then add and mix those missing ingredients. My guacamole's tomato flavor was too strong, so I included an extra avocado, a couple more stalks of green onion, some more cilantro, and another 1/2 lemon.

I almost never eat guacamole, so I didn't know how it should taste. Ryan liked how it tasted in the end, but Sarah wanted more salt. It all comes down to taste.

The guacamole went very well as a topping for Mexican Turkey Burgers.

Ryan had a special scoop (pictured in bottom

center) for the avocados, but I didn't like it.

I would rather cut and then pull the core

from the skin by hand. I did like the chopper

(pictured in the top center) and wish I had one

because I use a lot of chopped garlic and onion.

Even though I rarely eat guacamole, this recipe was fun because it represents the core of cooking. Subjectively, cooking is not about exact, scientific measurements or precise step-by-step instructions. It's a gut feeling. It's shooting from the hip. It's personal. It's art. That's what makes it fun. I've heard about people who are very exact about recipes and cooking, but that's not fun. It's also constraining. It doesn't allow experimentation, and experimentation lets me find new recipes. I'd rather make a few mistakes and know more about what I'm cooking, what makes it taste that way, and what makes it better.

I now want to learn how to make homemade salsa. I wonder how hard it would be to make homemade tortilla chips. I would also like to learn how to make BBQ sauce.