I am a little late in blogging about this, but a couple Friday’s ago my work had a Guac-Off (guacamole contest) to celebrate the Super Bowl.
So much guac. We had nine participants in total.
I have to be honest here and say I don’t even really like guacamole all that much. I think because I just LOVE SALSA SO MUCH so if I am eating my tortilla chips with anything, I prefer to eat them with that spicy tomato deliciousness (and a friggin’ lot of it).
But I do like contests or any sort of competition. Quite a lot. Also, the winner received a bottle of Jose Cuervo tequila, and again, not the biggest fan of tequila, but I think winning is more important than the prize.
So I was on board for the guac-off. And having never made guacamole before, I needed a partner who kind of knew what they were doing with guacamole-making if I stood a chance at winning. So I roped in Evan (who LOVES to cook, have I mentioned this? Score again) to help me.
We went out and bought a ton of avocados (and Corona, as you can see in the background, and we also had tacos for dinner to complete our Mexican night).
We mashed those babies up with a potato masher, and then just started adding ingredients. We didn’t follow a recipe, or Evan didn’t, because I mainly just supervised and let him take over. He put onions, garlic, tomatoes, lime juice, cayenne pepper and cilantro in the food processor and then just added that to the mashed avocado.
Which we then mixed together until we had a beautifully creamy guac.
Which was not quite as fluorescent green as it looks in this picture. My iPhone likes to get excited about colours sometimes.
We thought the guac still needed a little somethin’ extra, so Evan had the great idea to add a little tahini as a secret weapon. I think it was a good call.
Honestly our guacamole was really good. Again, no expert here, but I really liked it. By this time I had been taste-testing guacamole for about two hours so I couldn’t tell anymore whether it was good or not, but the next day I was loving it. We didn’t think it was winning guacamole, but it was good!
We had a bunch of leftover taco beef from dinner, and Evan really wanted to add it to the guacamole, which looking back I think would have been an amazing idea. But at the time I voted that down. I love the idea of buafamole (haha), but I thought people would be weirded out by eating beefy guacamole. I kind of wish we did this though… Ah well. Next time.
I felt confident in my entry for the guac-off. My guac was in good company!
(my guac is in the middle of the above pic)
There was some gooooood guacamole kicking around.
Alex on my left had a DELICIOUS and extremely well-presented apple tequila guacamole. He let the apples soak in the tequila before adding them to his guac, and I was definitely skeptical about this guacamole recipe when he told me about it the day before…but it was extremely good. His guacamole bowl was the only one that was completely empty by the end of the guac-off. And Christina on the right made a tex mex guacamole, which was also quite delicious.
Some people chose to bring all their ingredients to work and make their guacamole last minute.
Which was a good idea, as then your avocado doesn’t brown.
This guacamole was definitely the best presented:
I thought this should be the winner before I even tasted it. So creative. I was kicking myself for slacking on presentation after I saw this.
And then the taste-testers rolled in.
And we enjoyed our guac with Mexican beer.
I still can’t get over this beer-at-work thing. It’s great.
In the end, the winner of the guac-off for both presentation and taste went to the football field guacamole, and one of our interns Christina (not the same Christina pictured with me above).
The boys in the background look a little jealous…
But my guacamole did get three votes for taste! Fine, one was my own…but I didn’t expect to receive any votes at all, so I will take that.
I had an extra container of guacamole left and by then I was so sick of guacamole I never wanted to look at it again. Luckily my friends had a girls’ night that evening to rehash all of our Jamaican stories, and you know we love our food tables… My leftover guac fit right in.
And that was the Guac-Off. Good times.
Love seeing my face on your blog! I’m a freakin’ celebrity! Lol. More guac please – tell Evan!
Haha. Too bad you can’t make it to hunting camp weekend – we would bring it!
Once again, your job is amazing. The only guacamole I get is old avacodo that mistakingly attaches itself to my clothing.
I was about to feel sorry for you, but then I remembered Lexy’s amazing tapenade. And her amazing love muffins. So…no.
Can I please come work with you? I LOVE guacamole…and beer!
Haha, if we have another guac-off (actually it’s an annual thing!) maybe you can come in and shadow me for a day
You seem pretty nice and not creepy, so this should be fine.
its not the prize but the winning that matters! HA!
I make the best guac. We were gonna have a guac off at my work but never got around to it. Sadness.
You need to organize one! Do you do anything differently do your guac that we didn’t?
my mom is mexican and she says that the way to keep your guac from browning is to leave the avocado seed (that huge nut thing) in your guac after you’ve prepared it. it seems to work for me…
Innnnnteresting. Someone did leave the avocado seed in their guac. I thought it was just for decorative purposes, but maybe it was for this reason! Good to know, thanks!
Yum & Fun! You would’ve had to rolled me out of there. I can eat guac for days! Nice job on your 1st round of guac making!
Oh for sure, you would have died. It’s not even my favourite and I could barely move afterwards. Thanks!
Man, I wish my work did stuff like this. Genius! And how can you not love guacamole (ok, ok, I understand the salsa argument, but you can put the salsa IN the guacamole!)
Hmm…that is true. I am going to have to do that.
You’re seriously killing me ..I LOVE GUACAMOLE !! I used to eat it all the time back in Mexico… sigh
I wanna eat guacamole in Mexico! We have an intern right now from Mexico and he taste-tested all our guacamole and he said we all did a great job
‘I think winning is more important than the prize’
Hahah, I love your honesty! I have to admit I’m the same. I often enter competitions to win things that I don’t want and might never use. Just because it’s so fun to win things!
Beer at work sounds awesome. I recently did an internship in Slovakia and every so often someone in the office would dream up a reason for a small celebration, everyone would have a shot of some magical Eastern European alcohol, and then go back to work. I do not think I would get away with that in the UK… but maybe I could start a new trend?!
It is! And just the competition part is fun! I really enjoy friendly trash-talking.
And that sounds pretty amazing. Slovakia may be on my job radar now…
the idea of a guac-off on its own is awesome enough, and at your work makes it even better!! i hope my future workplace is as awesome as that. mmm now i want guacamole..
Oh it is awesome. I highly suggest implementing this at your future workplace.
I can’t believe you don’t love the Guac!! It is pretty much my fav. It makes me feel all strange because I pretty much feel like we are food soul mates and I don’t know if this might be a deal-breaker in our food relationship.
But I think I can overlook it because you gave a shout out to my love muffins and my tapenade. I am a sucker for compliments.
Also, as an aside but totally food related, today at work we had yummy food for Convenor Workshop and I missed you so much because no one was there to appreciate it with me. Doug just thought it was too expensive and Mike doesn’t like anything delicious. And then Beth asked me about what we should order for Exec Council this week and I felt like I needed your guidance. It’s just not the same. I can’t carry the food torch all by myself in the office. It’s a tough, tough job.
I LIKE the guac (and actually I have a new appreciation for it now), but no, I don’t love it! I don’t know why, please forgive me!
I still think of your tapenade. MAN that was good. And I don’t even like olives that much! haha.
And the rest of your comment made me really miss you guys and our catered meetings. A lot. I really miss the office. I miss Doug and his Dougginess and his love for us, and Beth and her office mom-ness and how we can talk to her about anything, and I miss Mike and his dry humour and his bland tastebuds. And I miss the exec council. And of course you. I mean, I still see you pretty often, but I miss working with you and being lured into your office into your web of questions! <3
LindSEY… what the shit. You didn’t win? I figured the All mighty Evan would for sure get all the votes. Okay I had to say All mighty Evan, because of the movie….Evan all mighty.. no? Okay. So…
Yeah yeah, I got it. V funny. So you should probably stick to the singing…that seems to be working out for you.
hardy har har… I will stick to it…maybe I’ll come around your neck of the woods and serenade you and Evan. Also guess what I did this morning? changed the words to the song sittin on the dock of the bay…to something that rhymes with block and say. Sitting on a bleep because I’m bleep…wassttinngg timmeee…. you had to be there because I probably laughed for a good 30 minutes.
Uh yes please to the serenade.
And perhaps that can be your next single.
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