When Bad Guacamole Happens to Good People

In my never ending quest to find quick and easy recipes during the work week, I thought to myself, "What could be simpler than finding a great sandwich and pairing that with soup or a hearty salad?" Famous last words.

After what felt like hours of chopping, mincing, food processor-ing (?) and a disaster of a kitchen, I was left with an inedible, funky, ridiculously overpowering onion tasting guacamole grilled cheese sandwich. Luckily for me I always have spare Eggo's on hand, so breakfast for dinner it was last night.

This recipe comes from "Two Peas & Their Pod", a husband and wife blog sharing their culinary creations with the world. I found the actual recipe for the "Guacamole Grilled Cheese Sandwich" on Pinterest and in the time it took to toast my waffle, an arduous task, I think I figured out what went wrong and who the culprit was, caught green handed. Here is the recipe:

Theirs. Everything looks better in rack focus. Photo from www.twopeasandtheirpod.com

Mine cooking away. 

Guacamole Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Yield: 2 sandwiches

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 5-7 minutes

The guacamole takes this grilled cheese sandwich to a whole new level of goodness.

ingredients:

To make the guacamole:
2 ripe avocados
1/2 small onion, minced  (WARNING: This is where the recipe went wrong. Too. Much. Onion)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 small jalapeño, stems and seeds removed, minced
2 tablespoons cilantro leaves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon of fresh lime juice
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
A dash of freshly grated black pepper
1 Roma tomato, chopped

4 slices crusty white bread
4 slices Cheddar cheese
Butter, for buttering bread

directions:

1. To make the guacamole-cut avocados in half. Remove seed. Scoop out avocado from the peel, put in a large bowl. Using a fork, mash the avocado. Add the onion, garlic, jalapeño, cilantro, lime juice, salt and pepper. Stir until well combined. Add the chopped tomato and stir.

This recipe is so frustrating! Luckily I had my
brother to do the mashing of the avocado for me. 

2. Heat a pan or griddle to medium-high heat. Spread desired amount of guacamole on both slices of bread then top with cheese. Butter outer slices of bread and grill on one side for about 2 minutes or until golden and crispy. Flip the sandwich and grill until golden brown. Make the other sandwich the same way and serve warm.

Uhhh I can taste the onion through this picture. 

Pros: From a comical standpoint, it was hysterical to watch my husband and brother's reaction to the sandwiches as they both took huge bites, masticated for a second or two, and proceeded to spit it back out. The sandwiches quickly turned into a game of who would try the biggest bite and who was brave enough to try and peel off the bread and cheese portion of the sandwich without touching the guacamole.

Cons: Let's start from the top. For starters, 5 minutes of prep time? You have got to be kidding me. It was more like 45 minutes of prep time. I'd like to meet the person who can single handily chop, peel, dice, remove seeds, and mince all of those ingredients in 5 minutes. 

My next issue was the guacamole. Had I reviewed the recipe more in depth, I think I would have foregone their guacamole and just made the kind I like instead. My favorite has to be "Mock-a-mole" by Bethanny Frankel. Not only is it delicious, but it's a lot better for you than regular guacamole (less avocado). Their guacamole recipe really isn't anything out of this world and the onion was way too overpowering. You literally couldn't taste anything but onion. Honestly, I could have eaten a raw onion and had the same effect (and it would have taken less time to make). Granted I did double the recipe, so I will take the blame for some amount of human error, but I think even made exactly as stated, the onion would have still overpowered the sandwich. I think that they would have been better off measuring out the onion and letting the reader know exact measurements of how much onion they used because I doubt it was supposed to taste like pure rancid onion.

Revisions: This isn't a complex, mind boggling, recipe, the idea is good it just doesn't pan out well in practice. I would try this recipe again, but probably make the guacamole I already know is fantastic and then follow the recipe from there.  In fact, I really wouldn't need the recipe at all after that point, it's just guacamole and cheese on bread. So, I have to give "Two Peas and Their Pod" credit for a good idea and a fresh new way to do Grilled Cheese, but this is not a recipe I will venture to try again. 

It goes without saying this is a "Hall of Shame" recipient.