Sunday, August 29, 2010

Light guacamole

I tried out this recipe mostly because I was intrigued. For a lot of get-togethers, we make guacamole because it's easy and delicious. And while there's nothing really unhealthy in there, the avocados do have a lot of fat (the good kind). I found this recipe that replaces some of the avocados with skinned lima beans. This is the part that intrigued me. I wasn't sure if you would be able to tell the difference, and I wanted to find out.

It was generally easy to make, though probably not as easy as real guacamole. I could only find 1.5 cup packages of lima beans, so I used them all and then added 2 (instead of 1) avocados. I also didn't use a jalepeno because I didn't want to buy one and I didn't use cumin because I didn't have it. I did use taco seasoning in it, a tip from my friend's mom. Overall it turned out pretty well, I couldn't really taste the lima beans and it didn't make a huge difference. I told the people I was serving it to that it had the beans in there, some were weirded out a bit but ate a bunch of it anyways.

Light guacamole

1 medium tomato (about 5 ounces), cored, seeded, and chopped fine (about 1 cup) (can use canned)
1 cup frozen mature lima beans (about 5 ounces) (you can use baby lima beans but they're hard to skin and your dip will be a bit grainy)
1 medium ripe avocado
3 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp reduced-fat mayonnaise
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro leaves
1 medium jalepeno chile, stemmed, seeded, and minced
1 Tbs. minced red onion or shallot
1 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 1 tsp.)
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
fresh ground black pepper

1. Place the tomato in a small colander set inside a bowl and set aside to drain while preparing the rest of the guacamole.

2. Bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a small sauce pan over high heat. Add the frozen lima beans and cook until creamy, about 5 minutes. Drain the beans and rinse under cold water until cool. Pat the beans dry with paper towels then remove the skins by pinching the beans so the skins slide off.

3. Halve the avocado, remove the pit, and scoop out a quarter of the flesh. Puree a quarter of the avocado, skinned lima beans, lime juice, mayo, and salt together in a food processor until smooth, 1 to 1 1/2 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed.

4. Cube the remaining three-quarters of the avocado into 1/2-inch pieces, and scrape into a medium bowl. Add the pureed lima mixture, drained tomato, cilantro, jalepeno, onion, garlic, and cumin, and stir gently to combine. Season to taste with pepper. Transfer the guacamole to a serving bowl; cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature until the flavors meld, about 1 hour.

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