Sweet pea guacamole, for those of us with taste buds – Fresh Foodie

Sweet pea guacamole can be a delicious tasty dip if you add enough herbs and spices and you don't think of it as a substitute for guacamole with avocados. It's a different dip, and don't let the fat-fearers tell you otherwise!

Join Debbie as she raves about whole foods, rants about chemicals and generally celebrates cooking and eating with fresh, local, nutritious foods. And sometimes she might get a little feisty….

The first thing you’re probably thinking is, “Avocados are so ridiculously delicious — why would anyone make a guacamole without them?” That’s what I thought before I first tried sweet pea guacamole, many years ago. Let me say right up front here that sweet pea guacamole is not a substitute for avocado guacamole, it’s a completely different dip but very yummy in its own right.

Don’t get me started on these do-gooders who think they are making healthier recipes for us when all they’re doing is taking the good fat out of our diets along with the taste. There’s nothing wrong with saturated fats from whole foods — avocados, coconuts and their oil, all the “taboo” foods are fine to eat, and in fact offer your body a great many benefits. So make the sweet pea guacamole because you want the taste of it, not because you fear avocados. That’s just silly.

What’s not silly is that this weekend, the little recipe that saved my appetizer was, in fact, a recipe for sweet pea guacamole. I have these avocados that refuse to ripen, and a bag of frozen peas are infinitely less stubborn than unripe avocados, so I went with it.

Using this recipe for sweet pea guacamole as a base, I altered it more to suit my tastes (since I actually have taste buds) and added more, well, tasty things. Remember, make the sweet pea guacamole because you want a different taste … or because your avocados won’t ripen.

Sweet Pea Guacamole

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Ingredients:

1-2 cloves garlic
1 pound bag of frozen peas, defrosted
2 tablespoons lemon juice or 1 tablespoon lemon juice + 1 tablespoon lime juice
2 tablespoons fire roasted chile peppers (though I bet I could have used the whole can … it was small and the dip wasn’t spicy)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 cup packed fresh cilantro
1/4 cup finely chopped onion (your choice)
1 tomato, chopped
lots of freshly ground black pepper

Puree the peas, garlic, chiles, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and cumin until smooth. Pulse in the cilantro, onion and tomato. Taste and increase seasonings to your liking.

Just a few notes. Because the peas are so sweet, you probably want lemon juice as opposed to lime; it’ll give your dip a little more kick. But try it out and see what works for you. You can add raw jalepenos for more spice and always more garlic and cumin. This guacamole was perfect served with thick, organic, restaurant-style yellow corn chips.