• 1 avocado, peeled and mashed
• ½ tomato, minced
• ¼ cup red onion, minced
• 1 jalapeno, minced
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon chopped cilantro
• pinch garlic powder
• squeeze of lime juice.

Get Started:

Step 1: Combine all of the ingredients and mix with a fork to combine well.  You can adjust the consistency to your personal preference.

• 3 green tomatoes, cored and chopped
• 1 medium-sized green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 medium (7-inch) cucumber, peeled, seeded, and chopped
• handful of parsley
• handful of cilantro
• ¼ cup fresh lime juice (about 2 limes)
• 1 medium (4-inch) avocado, peeled, pitted, and diced
• 1 medium clove garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 to 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon honey or sugar
• 1 cup cold water
• black pepper, to taste
• cayenne pepper, to taste
• tortilla chips, for garnish
• 4 tablespoons Greek yogurt (optional)

Get Started:

Step 1:  Combine everything in a large bowl, and mix as well as possible. Puree the soup bit by bit in a blender or food processor, until desired consistency

Step 2:  Place in bowl, cover and chill until very cold.

Step 3:  Serve plain or topped with tortilla chips and/or a dollop of plain yogurt. 

Using avocado oil once or twice a month can help to keep your hair in tip top condition. If your hair is extremely damaged or you are trying to recover from chemical processes, it may be used more often.

Adding a few drops of avocado oil to your usual shampoo can improve the shampoo’s moisturizing effect.

Massaging into the oil into your hair can promote hair growth by providing much needed nutrition to the follicles.

It can be used to tame dry, fly away hair by rubbing a scant amount between your hands and smoothing your hair.

Avocado oil is a also good way to relieve itchy, dry scalp.  Take advantage of the high fat content of avocado oil by massaging it into your scalp.  The fats are easily absorbed through your skin and will help soothe your scalp.  It can also known to help stimulate hair growth.

Avocado oil combined with citrus juice can be an effective remedy to treat scars.  Citrus juice is a natural bleaching agent and avocado oil provides the essential moisture needed to reduce the visibility of the scar.

Get Started:

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed citrus juice (lemon, lime, orange, or grapefruit work well) 
• 5 tablespoons avocado oil

Step 1:  Combine the ingredients in a small container with a tight fitting lid.  Shake vigorously to combine the juice and the oil.

Step 2:  Apply a small amount directly onto scarred area and massage into the skin for a few minutes.  Allow to sit on skin for an hour or so at the minimum, but you can leave it overnight.

Step 3:  Rinse with cool water.

The Hass avocado is named after Rudolph Hass, a La Habra Heights, California postal worker who patented the variety in 1935 from avocados grown from a tree in his backyard. This variety accounts approximately 85% of the avocados grown in California.

The following is excerpted from a 2004 article, How The Hass Avocado Came To Be, by Cindy Miller, granddaughter of Rudolph Hass:

My mom, Fait (Hass) Wilkes knows how the Hass avocado came to be, so I will share it with you . . . After reading a magazine article illustrated with an Avocado Tree with dollar bills hanging from it, Grandpa bought a small 1 1/2 acre grove in La Habra Heights in 1925. There were a few Fuerte avocado trees.

He planted the rest of the grove on 12 foot centers with three seeds in each hole. He hired a professional grafter named Mr. Caulkins, to graft cuttings from the existing Fuerte trees onto the strongest of the three trees from each hole. All but three “took”. The next year Mr. Caulkins re-grafted those three trees. The following year Mr. Caulkins re-grafted the one tree that had rejected the graft again. Again it didn’t take. Grandpa was ready to give up and chop the tree down, but Mr. Caulkins said it was a good strong tree. He advised Grandpa to just let it grow and see what happens. So he did. The Hass avocado happened. Grandpa Hass only planted the seed, Mr. Caulkins did the grafting, and God gave the increase.

Grandpa patented the Hass Avocado in 1935 but, since it was the first patent ever issued on a tree, it got no respect. Growers would buy one tree from Mr. Brokaw who had the exclusive right to produce the nursery trees. They would then re-graft their whole grove with the bud wood from that one tree. For that reason Rudolph Hass made only $5,000 royalties on his patent. However, he was the first to have a producing grove of Hass Avocados, all be it a very small grove. He found a ready market for the fruit at the Model Grocery Store in Pasadena where the chefs for wealthy people who lived on South Orange Grove Street shopped. Once they sampled the Hass variety, they insisted on it. My mom, her sister, and three brothers worked with Grandma and Grandpa harvesting and also sold avocados from a roadside stand by the grove at 430 West Road in La Habra, California.

Every Hass avocado tree today is descended from that original tree. There is a plaque commemorating the location of the parent tree but the tree died of root rot and was cut down on 9/11/2002 at the ripe old age of 76 (It was planted in 1926). That is very old for an avocado tree. The wood from the tree is stored at the nursery run by Mr. Brokaw’s nephew. Some of the wood has been made into jewelry, gifts, and keepsakes by Mr. Hass’s Nephew, Richard Stewart. He gave them to members of the Hass family and some members of the Avocado Growers Association.

Grandpa expanded to Fallbrook with an 80 acre orchard which bore its’ first crop in 1952 just as Grandpa Hass died of heart failure in the Fallbrook Hospital. However, Grandma Hass lived to the ripe old age of 98 after a lifetime of eating a half piece of wheat toast with avocado slices on it with breakfast just about every morning.

Patents expire after 17 years. When Grandpa filed for his patent in 1935 he prayed and asked the Lord to let him live as long as the patent was good. As a young man he had been rejected from service in WWI because of a congenital heart condition. He knew his ticker was not too good, yet he worked hauling those heavy mail sacks all those years. He passed away in 1952 a few months after his 17 year patent on the Hass avocado expired. Grandma Hass lived the rest of her life on the pension from Grandpa’s mailman job. Others saw the profit potential in the Hass avocado and have developed it into the industry it is today. Now we all enjoy its fruit.

OLIVE OIL          

Calories: 120

Total fat: 14 grams

Saturated  fat: 2 grams

Monounsaturated fat: 10 grams

Polyunsaturated fat : 1 gram

CANOLA OIL:     

Calories: 120

Total fat: 14 grams

Saturated fat: 1 gram

Monounsaturated fat: 9 grams

Polyunsaturated fat: 4 grams

AVOCADO OIL:

Calories: 120

Total fat: 14 grams

Saturated fat: 2 grams

Monounsaturated fat: 10 grams

Polyunsaturated fat: 2 grams