PACC Butterfly Effect Hummus

Heather's Butterfly Effect Hummus is the recipe I started out with and made a few changes to make some really superior hummus.  Last week I made a different recipe of hummus and Dear One enjoyed it. He has not had a chance at this yet  but I hope he will like it since I REALLY like it!

PACC Butterfly Effect Hummus

2 cans chick peas, drained retaining aquafaba

4 large garlic cloves

2 Tablespoons lemon juice

3 Tablespoons tahini

1 teaspoon pink salt

3/4 cup aquafaba -though I started out
with 1/2 cup liquid

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

Put them all in the Cuisinart food processor and processed until nice and light and fluffy. No, I did not press the garlic, just threw the cloves in whole.  So good.

It is just barely possible that four giant cloves of garlic is a little over the top, but I won't know for sure until I eat more the second day.  Still, I do like garlic and it keeps the vampires away they say...

Here is the Butterfly Effect Hummus on WasaKrisps with sauerkraut on top.  It is really good. I will eat more like this!  I offered some to Dear One but he declined.  Sauerkraut is not on his list of To Eat foods.  Sadly, because it has some pluses for the gut biome, I hear, though other smart people say it has too much salt to be good for you.  I take that with a grain of salt...

Munchie Monday: Quick and Easy Meal

 Today I made some of The Jaroudi Family Hummus again.  It is so light and delicious!  Some hummus is very sludgy and no matter how healthy it may be, I cannot eat it.  Not the case with this recipe!

For supper tonight I had a toasted whole wheat bun with Brit's hummus on both halves then topped with a sliced dill pickle spear and very thinly sliced English cucumber rounds.  It was SO GOOD!!  I made this because somewhere I heard that cucumbers are good for you. I don't generally like them.  At least, not unless they are straight from the garden...

Dear One had  Bubba Vegetable Burgers on the same toasted whole wheat buns.  He thought they tasted fine but were a little soft.  Still, he ate two of them...

Munchie Monday: Sauce-Hummus-Dip? Actually, it's B-Sauce

Today here is the promised sauce recipe that I got from Monson Made This.  It is really so good that I don't believe I will ever spend another penny on store-bought sauce-hummus-dip.

Something I learned not so long ago is that there are more than salty, sweet, sour, and bitter tastes on our tongues.  There is now something called umami.  This "hummus" is filled with umami somehow.

Umami  "B" Sauce

1 can drained and rinsed chick peas/garbanzo beans
4 Tablespoons lemon juice
3 Tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 Tablespoon Bragg's Liquid Aminos
2-4 cloves garlic
2 Tablespoons tahini
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
1/2 teaspoon granulated onion
1/4 teaspoon coriander powder
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika

Place all ingredients in a food processor and process until entirely smooth.  Taste it then add a little salt and pepper if you want.  In you want to loosen it up, you can add a little water or even vegetable broth if you want, like 1-2 Tablespoons. I did not. I love it just the way it is.

This is the "B" sauce not well photographed.  Smooth and luscious.

We took a new batch of the brown rice and quinoa crackers plus this sauce to a vegan get-together.  They were both very popular.  Enough so that I left the remaining uneaten items for the hostess. After all, both are so easy to make that I can just make another batch.

About the crackers,  next time I make them I think I will cut them, place them on the Silpat sheet then use a rolling pin to see if I can get them thinner and smoother.

Food Friday: Vitamix Tahini and Hummus

When I was looking through the Vitamix Blender cookbook I saw a recipe for hummus. I LOVE hummus.  It tastes good and is good for you, unless you eat too much.

At the Winco Foods store last week we had purchased a couple of pounds of sesame seeds thinking of trying to make tahini in the Vitamix. At least I was thinking of making tahini.  Dear One questioned my wisdom.  Again.

 So, yesterday I gave it a try.

Dear One was watching something on his computer screen from Apple on the couch in the living room.  I was in the kitchen about 15 feet away making tahini, which is made by simply putting 4 1/2 cups of sesame seeds into the blender jar and letting it rip. I did need to keep pushing down the seeds with the tamper.  It made a very loud noise for just about 2 minutes when I stopped it.  Dear One came around the separator wall and asked whatever I was doing!  Can you believe it?!    Anyway, I had made the tahini.

As you can see, I should probably have blended a little longer to get it smoother, or put in some sesame oil, but I did not want to do that.

Since that worked, I got out the recipe for the hummus.

Just about a quart of hummus!! Homemade from start to finish and just plain delicious!

This is what I used:

3 1/2 cups of chick peas (that I had cooked in the Instant Pot last week and which were waiting to be used up)
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon kosher coarse salt
4 teaspoons granulated garlic
1/2 cup water
1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon ground cumin

Put these ingredients all in the blender jar and slowly move the speed button from 1 to 10 then let it blend at speed 10 for a minute.  It is so light and fresh and delicious.  Have you noticed that sometimes the hummus in the store is sort of thick and sludgy?  Well this is not.  I consider it a success. It is too bad Dear One is not much of a hummus person, except in a pinch when there is nothing else to eat in the snack line.  Funny guy.

Food Friday: More Kale Salad

Earlier I think I shared a kale salad recipe.  Probably more than once, but here is another iteration.  I really do love kale salad. I also feel so virtuous when I eat it.  AND the scales thank me.

One bunch lacinato/tuscan/dinosaur kale
One large head fresh broccoli
One bunch celery
One/half large sweet onion, sliced thin
Pitted Greek olives, cut in half
Hummus
Tajin Classico

Wash the kale.  Dry it.  Strip the leaves off the stems.  Chop them into bite-sized pieces and put into a LARGE bowl

Wash the broccoli.  Shake off the water.  Cut the florets off the stem and chop into your favorite bite-sized pieces and toss onto the kale in the bowl.

Remove the ribs from the celery bunch.  Wash well then cut off any stem pieces that offend you.  Slice fine and add to the bowl.

Remove the outer paper from the sweet onion.    Cut the onion in have from pole to pole, then lay it flat side down on your cutting surface and thinly slice.  Cut the slices in half or thirds and toss on top of your other vegetables.

Toss the vegetables until they are well interspersed with one another.  Take out a large handful and place in an individual serving bowl.  The remaining salad should be tightly covered and put into the refrigerator for the next meal.  I eat this 2-3 times a day.

On the top of the individual serving of salad toss in a few cut Greek olives, a couple of Tablespoons of your favorite hummus and a sprinkle of Tajin Classico.  Stir well and enjoy.

Sometimes I add a little steamed flaked fish.  Sometimes some chopped tomato or carrots or cabbage.

Yummy.

Munchie Monday: Vacation Food--The Perfect Simple Salad

On vacation it can be difficult to eat the way you normally do.  Especially when there are different views as to what makes good vacation food.  In my case, I eat salad every day.  At every meal, if possible.  It is a little harder on vacation depending on the accommodation's facilities.  It turns out this time that rather than the mini-refrigerator/coffee pot we were told to expect in our unit, we have a mini-refrigerator, coffee pot for herb tea, a microwave, some base cabinets and a sink in a nice counter. Things are looking up!  I had brought our Instant Pot, because I assumed somewhere in the room there would a surface with an electrical outlet so we could at least heat up soup or something.

So, today I am hoping to go to a grocery store to find:
Lacinato (i.e. dinosaur) kale
Broccoli
Sweet onion
Canned red beans
Something for Dear One to eat, either in the Instant Pot or the microwave if he wants hot food.

Another thing I am thinking is to get:
Canned chick peas
Garlic Paste
Ripe avocado
Tahini
Lemon or lime juice
Roasted red peppers
A large bowl at Dollar Tree or some such place

The idea for this last list is to  see if I can make some Avocado Roasted Pepper Hummus.  Maybe.

If anyone has had any luck with different "vacation foods" in a unit without full cooking equipment, I would love to know what you made and how it turned out.  Oh, and if the family liked it, too!

PACC White Bean Hummus

At a wonderful get-together a couple of weeks ago, Amy made some absolutely delicious white bean dip.  She very kindly gave me her recipe.  It turns out I did not have the exact ingredients, and since I had cooked some dried white beans, adding a little baking soda as they soaked--though since then I have heard I should have left the soaking water with baking soda with the beans and cooked them with baking soda water--which I drained then cooked until the beans were soft, I really wanted to make some bean dip.

Seeing several recipes for hummus I thought I might use bits of each recipe to make something edible.  IT WORKED!    Go to Grammie's Kitchen and Bedtime Stories for the recipe!

This is a picture:

This hummus is not really wet as it looks...just the result of bad photography.