The best (and safest) way to pit an avocado

I’m sorry I didn’t post this last week in time for Cinco de Mayo, but it was while I was looking up recipes for dinner that night that I realized, again, that sometimes the Internet lies.

Post after post, video after video, all explaining and showing what has come to be believed as the best way to pit an avocado.

I’ll link to this one for you, but you probably don’t have to see it. Using a very big knife, you are supposed to cut all around the avocado pit, creating a nearly cut in half item that needs to be twisted apart. Once the parts are separated, you are to smack the pit with the big knife to remove it.

I have several issues with this technique, but I’ll limit myself to two here:

  1. What is up with all the huge knives in the avocado videos? When ripe, you don’t need German or Japanese forged steel to force them open.
  2. I don’t know about you, but usually when I’m making guacamole, alcohol is involved. Smashing down toward my hand with a sharp knife doesn’t feel like a recipe for success (pun intended, sorry).
In my opinion, here is really the best way to pit an avocado.

Using a butter knife, cut into the avocado the normal way, cutting down until you hit the pit, and the running the knife all the way around until you come back to where you started.

Instead of twisting the pieces apart at this point, rotate the avocado and cut around the pit again, creating four quarters that are now held together by the bit.

Cutting an avocado into quarters is a safer way to remove the pit

With your hand, remove the quarter sections of the avocado, one by one.

cutting an avocado into quarters is a better way to remove the pit

The pit will stick to the last section, but enough of it will stick out that it will be easy to grip with your fingers and remove it.

Slice up the remaining quarters to use as needed, or smash them to make guacamole.

Teeny Tiny Tip: Orange Cubes

Freeze Orange Slices for great tasting ice cubes for a drink | suzerspace.com

At work, we somehow wandered down a conversational path that took us from fruits we don’t like to eat (canned fruit cocktail) to fruits that are good frozen, and most of the ideas offered were ones I already knew.

Someone threw out the idea of frozen orange slices in drinks for the summer.

It was late on Friday afternoon. I was already looking forward to Happy Hour. Suddenly I couldn’t hear anything else anymore because frozen orange cubes in a cocktail just sounded amazing.

Repeated testing throughout the weekend proved that to be correct.

Two tips:

  1. Remove as much of the white part of the orange as possible (it gets weird when frozen). Supreming them is an option; I just peeled them very close.
  2. Separate the slices slightly when freezing so they don’t form a frozen orange ball.

Sunday Scrolling: May 7, 2017

  • It’s Stanley Cup season, but even if you aren’t a hockey fan you really should take a look (listen?) to the amazing Doc Emrick.
  •  I had quit reading The Oatmeal, but Shutterbean just made me go back. (In case you have never read him – swear words are involved, although this particular link has a “classroom safe” option.).
  • Is it time for the switch?

None of the links in this post are affiliate; they are all just items that caught my eye this week.

Happy Day Mini Wreath

Happy Day Mini wreath | suzerspace.com

Last winter, when my Silhouette Cameo was new, I spent a lot of time looking at Christmas paper decorations, trying to decide which ones looked like they were within my new skill set.

At the same time, this pin kept surfacing in my Pinterest feed, (which does not feature paper decorations) and I knew somewhere these two searches were going to overlap.

Of course, it happened last week. When it is most definitely not Christmas decorating season.

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