Spicy Avocado Relish

It's Friday, so you know what that means - Friday Family Movie Night in the Soupir household.  I was planning on those Roasted Sweet Potato Medallions, and my husband volunteered to make burgers to go with them.  Both would be good for our living room picnic - nothing too messy.  So, I headed to the grocery store after work, in search of Jersey sweet potatoes.  Do you see where this is going?  I was in the produce section again and completely lost track of time.  I walked away with kumquats, oranges, ruby red grapefruits, lettuce, yellow tomatoes, avocados and the sweet potatoes that I originally went in there for.  Plus some garnet sweet potatoes.  They were sitting right next to the Jerseys and they called to me.  Seriously.  I wouldn't kid you about this.  They really called to me.  They said, "Hey, look at us.  We're red.  We're beautiful.  Look at our name - Garnet.  How could we have that kind of name and not be fabulous?  Take us home with you.  You won't regret it.  Trust us."  So, I did.  I trusted them, and I brought them home with the intention of doing half Jersey and half Garnet for the medallions.  I swear to you, that is exactly how it happened!

So why, you might ask, isn't this post about the sweet potatoes?  Well, I simply ran out of time.  After spending entirely too long at the store, I still had three other errands to go.  By the time I left town, it was 6:15 already, which would mean that I wouldn't get home until 6:45.  There was no way to get the potatoes done in time for our movie.  Shoot!  How did I let that happen yet again?  I found myself scrambling around, for the second night in a row, trying to figure out what recipe to put on the blog.

About halfway home, it came to me.  I bought the avocados to place on the top of my burger, along with some jalapeno slices, for a Southwest burger.  Why not combine those to make a spicy relish instead?  The rest of the drive was deciding what was going to go in the relish, besides those two ingredients.  This is what I came up with.

Here's your Cast of Characters.

1 Small onion
1/2 Sweet yellow or orange bell pepper
3 Tablespoons lime juice
1 Avocado
1 - 2 Tablespoons pickled jalapeno slices (depending on how hot you want it)
1 Tablespoon jalapeno "juice" from the jar
1 Teaspoon, each, minced garlic and cilantro
1 Teaspoon McCormick Perfect Pinch Garlic & Herb blend
3/4 Teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 Teaspoon, each, freshly ground pepper and cumin
1/4 Teaspoon cayenne pepper (which I realized later is turned around & it's driving me crazy)

Finely dice onion and pepper, and put in a small mixing bowl.

Add lime juice and mix.  Pit and peel the avocado, then cut into small chunks.

Place in the bowl with peppers and onions.  Stir well, breaking onions apart as you go.  Finely dice the jalapeno slices.

Add those to the bowl, along with the remaining ingredients. 

Mix well.  You can serve right immediately, which is what I did, or you could refrigerate it for about 30 minutes, letting everything meld.  I can tell you, it was pretty darn good right away!

Enjoy!

*Note - I used 2 tablespoons of jalapeno slices, and combined with the juice and cayenne, it packed a punch, which was perfect for my burger.  You can certainly tone it down by using less jalapenos, substituting more lime juice for the jalapeno juice and/or leaving out the cayenne.  I just happen to like it with some kick.