Everyone has a favorite guacamole recipe

My recipe for guacamole calls for avocado, lemon or lime juice, cilantro, salt and pepper.

Jessica Webster | AnnArbor.com

Avocados. They are the true reason I could never be a real locavore. Avocados are just fatty enough to be satisfying and just healthy enough to make me feel good about eating them. They're good for your skin and hair and can help lower your bad cholesterol levels and raise the good cholesterol.

The best way to eat an avocado, of course, is as guacamole. We can thank the Aztecs in the 1500s for the first guacamole recipe. According to Wikipedia, the original guacamole recipe calls for mashing avocados, lime juice and salt together with a mortar and pestle.

Over the years, my approach to guacamole has slowly evolved from a complicated recipe involving red onions, coriander, garlic and tomatoes to a very simple combination of avocado, lemon juice (or lime), fresh cilantro, salt and pepper. I found that the onions and tomato could make the guacamole unpredictably more runny, and I preferred the simpler recipe that called more attention to the flavor of the avocado.

Edward Vielmetti weighs an avocado before concocting his "lazy man's guacamole" for the AnnArbor.com Community Team.

Jessica Webster | AnnArbor.com

It turns out I'm not alone in my guacamole obsession here in the AnnArbor.com offices, but each of us has our own spin on the recipe. Community Director Stefanie Murray counts it as one of her specialties, but insists that it's not guacamole if it doesn't have red onion and tomatoes. Education reporter David Jesse fancies himself something of a guacamole connoisseur, but his recipe relies on "various and sundry hot sauces" to give it a kick.

Lead Blogger Edward Vielmetti calls his recipe "the lazy man's guacamole," a technique that he demonstrated for me yesterday afternoon. It is pretty simple: mix equal parts fresh salsa and mashed avocado. If you choose your salsas well (and he did) this can be an easy and refreshing snack.

How do you make guacamole? Is your recipe simple or complex? Is there a restaurant in town that you think makes extraordinary guacamole? Weigh in below!

Jessica Webster leads the Food & Drink section for the AnnArbor.com community team. She remembers that you have to alternate the letters "a" and "o" to spell avocado. You can reach her at JessicaWebster@AnnArbor.com.