Who likes Avocado?
I hope you all enjoyed my guest post at GNOWFGLINS. It is a story about me, and how I learned to accept myself and the GAPS diet!
Now onto another GAPS recipe! Well, i guess this really isn’t a recipe. I would consider this GAPS prep work! There is a lot of preparation on the GAPS diet, as some of you may already know. My role is to help your transition be as smooth as possible, so your whole life doesn’t revolve around food (shopping, cooking, cleaning). Yes I LOVE to cook and go to my farmers market, but sometimes I don’t want to be cooking! If i am not creating recipes I usually am soaking up the sun and swimming in my lake 🙂
So, to save time, here is an easy step to help your GAPS life. What sparked me to do this was actually the GREAT price ( $0.70 a piece I live in Minnesota, so avocados don’t get much better priced than that!) I found on these avocados at my local grocery store. No they are not organic. I don’t bother to buy organic avocado’s because they have a shell that protects them.
Now you are probably wondering..can you really freeze avocados? The answer is Yes! I use the frozen smashed avocados for guacamole, blending into smoothies, making chocolate pudding, baked goods, and spooning into soups. You can pretty much use it any way you would a fresh, smashed avocado. I don’t think it changes the consistency much, but if you are worried use it when you incorporate it into a recipe.
So here you go. Easy pictures for you to follow exactly what I did.
INGREDIENTS:
Ripe avocados
1 TBS lemon juice for 3 avocado’s (this keeps it from turning brown. You cannot even taste the lemon when you put it into recipes)
DIRECTIONS:
1. Wash your avocado’s and take off the stickers and the little knobs (stems) at the top.
2. Slice open your avocado length-wise. Cut around the pit and twist the two halts apart.
3. Carefully stab your pit with your knife…very carefully!
4. Twist out your pit with your knife. This is really easy if you have a ripe avocado.
5. Take a big spoon and soup around the edges of the skin to release the avocado flesh. Again, this should be easy if the avocado is ripe. Otherwise you will have to really dig it out.
6. This is my shell after taking 1 big scoop of the flesh. I almost got the whole thing in 1 scoop 🙂 I love doing that!
7. Repeat steps 2-6 for all your avocado’s. I did about 20 of them 🙂
8. See the little brown spots? That is most likely going to happen, so just scoop the little bad spots out. You don’t have to get them perfect, just do the best you can.
9. Place the scooped avocado’s in a big bowl.
10. SMOOSH! You can use a potato smasher, a fork, a Cuisinart, or your hands (That is what I did. But I cleaned them very well before).
11. Use lemon juice to keep your avocado’s from turning too brown. Discoloration is normal, but you want to reduce it as much as possible. 1 TBS for 3 avocados.
12. This is my little trick for putting things in plastic bags with NO mess. You might have your own way, but here is mine. Set up your cups and stick a plastic bag ( sandwich size) into the cup. Roll the top zippy part over the rim of the cup. (Honestly I really don’t like plastic, but I have not found a better way to freeze things yet. I break too many glass jars when I attempt to freeze things in them)
13. Spoon a few big scoops into the set up plastic bag. I don’ t like to fill them too much, because I usually want them to defrost quickly!
14. Without getting avocado mush on the edges, carefully flip the zippy part back over the cup. Take the bag out (don’t spill the avocados) and gently squeeze the air out and zip it up!
15. Repeat steps 13 and 14 until all your smashed avocado’s are in bags. I only set up 4 cups and just kept replacing the bags into them as I went along.
16. Flatten your avocado bags to make them easy to store in your freezer.
17. Place the bags in your freezer. Try to place them on a flat surface, or better yet lay a cutting board in your freezer and lay the avocado bags on it for a nice flat freezing.
18. Now You have smashed avocado ready to use at your convenience! Frozen avocados taste really good in smoothies. The reason why we do this is because, we like to get food when it is in either in season or at a good price! Above, is my defrosted smashed avocado’s that I am using in a recipe which will share with you soon! I have a little brown coloring, but really it doesn’t matter!
~Stay Gutsy, Caroline
Awesome idea! I eat at least one avocado a day, and yes, getting them on sale is a big treat, but I never knew how to keep them.
I am glad that i could teach you something! Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Brilliant!! I should do that as they are on sale in MI right now too, I think a little more pricey than what you got them for, but still a good deal for here. My daughter loves avocado and I just picked up some lemon juice (organic) at Costco for a really good price. What do you have in the bag next to the frozen avocado, looks like winter squash? How do you freeze that?
I get my lemon juice (organic at costco too!) Yep, that is winter squash you see- good eyes! I will do a post on how to prepare butternut squash and freeze it- instead of cans- beacuse that is healthier and less expensive. Even though it is not squash season, GAPS people use a lot of squash, so i will post that up soon- I already have the pictures 🙂
I may have to give that a try now that I’m adding more avocado to my diet … that’s a better price than we have, by the way!
Haha! I was for sure you warmer states would have a better price. Well I guess next time that happens here in Minnesota, I better stock up again!
Great way to preserve avocado. Thank you for sharing at Rural Thursdays this week.
You welcome! I will be coming back to share more recipes next week!
Hi Caroline!! Could you post the recipe for the chocolate pudding you mentioned? 🙂
YES! I got all the pictures ready, i will post that in the next few days…keep reading!
Thank you so much for this great post. I had no idea that avocados could be frozen like this!
I would love it if you would share this at my new Smart Solutions linky party. You can link up here:
http://theprudentpantryblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/prudent-projects-smart-solutions-linky_13.html
Have a great day!
Thanks for the invitation! Yep avocados are pretty good this way- and so easy! 🙂
Hi Caroline,
This is a great tutorial for preserving the Avocado’s, great post! Hope you are having a fantastic week and thank you so much for sharing with Full Plate Thursday.
Come Back Soon!
Miz Helen
you can also just freeze them whole…. and avoid the plastic!
Great idea! That way you can buy a bunch in season and have it available later.
Yeah, I love just poping things out of the freezer!
Perfect idea! I’m always so tempted to stock up on avocados when they’re cheap but can’t eat them quick enough. Problem solved! Do you know how long they stay in the freezer?
A long time! They may turn a little brown when you defrost them but the inside is perfect green!!
Hello! Nice site! I just found you through a link on Real Food Forager. I love avocados too; the idea of freezing them, especially when you can get a good price, is very clever. I like to use the Ball Freezer Jars to freeze things (its the same company that makes all the canning jars). The Freezer Jars are all BPA-free plastic and come in various sizes – I love them! I also use Ball’s plastic lids for my homemade yogurt that I store in canning jars; these lids are also BPA-free. Thanks for the good recipes and ideas!
Hi Linda, ohh perfect! I was looking for some plastic ball jars because I always break the glass ones! I will have to get some because we are sending me sister off to college and she will need to freeze broth! You commented at a PERFECT time 🙂 thanks