How do you ripen Avocados?

[miriam]

seal the avacado in a paper brown bag with an apple. keep in a warm but not hot place. If the avacado has already been cut, coat the surface with butter, or mayonnaise.

[Toadman]

Good tips! Brown-bag with a sliced apple it is! Thanks all!

Ever dip a hot-wing into guac instead of ranch dressing? oo la la..

[Sweet]

ok, here's what I do for guacamole.... you can make your own recipe from these tips....

....cut at top of avacado (n. pole) to s. pole just to the seed and continue back to the n. pole

....avacado should seperate into 1 piece with seed, 1 w/o

....take heavy, straight edge knife and pop it into the seed...without cutting ur fingers, then turn knife and seed should come out.

....now, without removing peel, carefully make lots of slices into the avacado seed crater in a grid pattern, and be sure to carefully cut right down to the skin but no through it...

....then take a big spoon and scoop out ur diced avacado, which can be smushed more with a potato masher if you like.

....be sure to add some lemon juice at this point to stop the avacado from turning dark

....other ingredients to add to ur liking are :

onion 1/2 to 1
green onion tiny circles (as a top dressing)
tomato finely chopped
salt and pepper
granulated garlic or fresh smashed and chopped fine
cilantro - must be fresh (ya either love or hate it)
tabasco
cayenne - tiny amount

other optional ingredients...
tiny pinch of sugar
dash worchestire sauce
x-tra lemon or lime juice (fresh is good) thins down sauce
spicy garlic pepper sauce or preferred hot sauce
parsley
substitute red onion, or add more

and that's about it. I think it is best made the same day you plan on eating it, but if you want to make some ahead of time, prepare everything but the avacado the day before...

...be sure to get an extra avacado just in case one is 'bad'

(hope I covered all of the optional ingredients, although there are lots of exotic or odd things you could do like carmalize the onions, or cook down slightly the fresh tomato, or add some tomatillos- boiled or steamed till tender then blended in a blender, and OH MY!!!!!!

YOU MUST ADD a fresh hot pepper finely diced!!! My favorite pepper to add to this are SERRANO peppers. Jalapeno's are almost as good. Habanero's - a little goes a real long way. A NewMex type chile probably would be ok, smoked jalapenos (chipoltes) would be fine (watch the heat if you buy the canned ones). I usually never add sweet green peppers to this dish.

One or two serrano's will give it enough good heat (one or less for small batch) and goes well with a few drops of tabasco. The idea is to make it flavorful and spicy but not too hot!!!!

So there ya have it. If you want specific quantities, I could probably come up with some type of measurments, or just search to find a zillion!

Hope ya like it!!!!!

[Angela]

We're lucky--we have an avocado tree in our backyard!

Whitebeard's right--avocados don't ripen until they're picked. If left on the tree long enough, the seed inside will start to sprout, and then the fruit will fall off, rot, and root.

When picking avocados, like many other types of fruit, grasp the fruit and gently bend the stem. If the fruit is ready to be picked, it should pop off the stem somewhat easily; if the stem just keeps bending, let go--it's not ready to come off the tree yet.

Fuertes are winter ripening, and will usually be ready between the end of November and April. Unlike other fruit trees, not all are ready at once--the tree will hold fruit for months. At this point in the season, it's not unusual for fruit to take a week or more to soften after being picked. This is especially true if the fruit wasn't quite ready to come off the tree.

You're right, Socal, I do have a favorite way to make guacamole!

Sweet made excellent suggestions. I tend to go for the simplest:
avocado,fresh lime juice,chopped fresh serranos (seeded), salt and black pepper, all to taste. If the peppers aren't hot enough, I might add a bit of habenero sauce. I don't know if I could come up with amounts. Cilantro is good; a little goes a long way since it has a strong flavor! Chopped onion is good. I usually just do the most basic concoction.

I generally just halve and seed them the way Sweet explained, scoup out the fruit with a big spoon, and then kind of cut them up in the bowl with two butter knives so that some of the avo is mush an some is still in small chunks. If really fussy, I'll have some avos be more ripe than others to get this desired effect.

[Angela]

delete--double post