Spicy beats cold!

At this time of year, I feel like eating spicy foods. I guess because it's so cold, I figure eating spicy foods warms me up from the inside and out. My family will eat almost any tex-mex dish and as my kids have gotten older, they will almost out-spice their mama! It warms my heart to see that in more ways than one!

Taco night is super easy at my house because the meat is already cooked and frozen. Everything else is just chopping and shredding. One thing that my son has to have at every tex-mex night is guacamole. One must plan ahead for guacamole because if you try to buy an avocado for the same day you are going to use it, you will be really disappointed. An avocado needs to be soft to the touch and at this time of the year it's sometimes difficult to find. Usually they are as hard as baseballs when you buy them. Put a hard avocado in a brown paper bag for a few days and it will ripen up nicely.

The stores around me occasionally have avocados for cheap. I buy a bunch and make a pot load of guacamole. If you make guacamole often you know that it turns brown in just a few hours. To keep this from happening, I put a little lemon or lime juice in my guacamole. I then line a cookie sheet with waxed paper and drop by cupfuls the guacamole. It will look like gross green cookies! Place the cookie sheet in the freezer overnight The next day, take the guacamole blobs off the waxed paper and place them in a large freezer bag for storage in the freezer.

Now, when it's tex-mex night at your house, you can take as many as you need out, place them in a bowl for a few hours and you'll have fresh guacamole!

Here's my recipe for guacamole. Many people have their favorite so use yours if you like it.

Guacamole:
2 ripe avocados- cut in half and squeeze the insides onto a plate. Throw away the seed.
1 T chopped onion, if you like less, use less
Juice of one lemon, about 2 T.
garlic powder, paprika, salt, red pepper to taste- add a little at a time
I use about 1/2 teaspoon each
1-2 T mayo, do not use miracle whip, it is sweet
If you want, add 1-2 T salsa

Mash avocados and mix in all the other ingredients. It always amazes me that those high prices mexican restaurants charge about $6 for this!

I'll be posting more tex-mex recipes this month. I figure if it's cold outside, I'll be sweating inside!