Roasted Red Pepper Hummus With Pita Chips

I've been wanting to make hummus for a while but never remembered to look for tahini (one of the main components) at the grocery store. I was able to pick some up the other week and decided it was time to treat myself to some homemade hummus.

Apart from the difficulty of tracking down tahini, hummus is really easy to make. It takes about 5 minutes, and you can easily customize it to suit your personal tastes.

The first thing I did was open the can of garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas). I drained off the liquid but kept it nearby. It's nice to save in case you need to thin the hummus later.

Dump the chickpeas into your handy-dandy food processor.

Add a big spoonful of tahini to the chickpeas.

Tahini is a paste made of sesame seeds and olive oil. You can keep tahini in the fridge for several months after opening. I bought mine from a co-op, but I think you can find it in some grocery stores, online, or you could make your own (which, given the amount of seeds, wouldn't be cheap, but I bet it would taste good.)

I'd start with a small spoonful and then add more as needed.

I gave the processor a quick whirr, just to make a little room for the rest of the ingredients. I added some lemon juice--you could add as little as a couple tablespoons, but after tasting and re-tasting, I ended up adding the juice of a whole lemon, which is about 1/4 a cup. Again, like the tahini, start with the smallest amount and then add more if your taste buds desire.

Roasted red peppers gave my hummus a nice red color and a gentle peppery flavor.

I initially added two large pieces of pepper, and then added another one later on. My small jar was 4 oz.; I think I added around 3/4 of the jar.

A couple cloves of garlic were next--I love garlic so I added three cloves. You could leave it out if you don't like garlic, or you could add as many cloves as you like.

I seasoned everything with just a tiny bit of salt, and a sprinkling of cayenne pepper. I wanted a fair amount of heat, so I added about half a teaspoon of cayenne.

A drizzle of olive oil will smooth out the hummus and add a little richness.

Give the food processor a quick grind. If your mixture is too thick, add the liquid from the beans a bit at a time.

And, with just a few spins of your food processor, you'll have yourself some hummus!

I love hummus with pita bread.

To make pita chips, I use a scissors to cut the pitas into wedges.

I lay them out in a single layer on a baking sheet and give them a light drizzle of olive oil.

If you wanted, now would be a good time to add some coarse salt or a light coating of spice (maybe Ras el Hanout or some five spice) to add an additional depth of flavor.

The chips went into a 350F oven; 15 minutes for warmed pitas, 25-30 for crisp chips.




I love to eat hummus drizzled with some olive oil with pita chips and cold slices of cucumber. Heaven!

Of course, this is an easy recipe to customize. Leave the red pepper out and you've got ordinary hummus. Roast your garlic over the stove or in the oven and you've got roasted garlic hummus. Make it more Mediterranean by using sundried or roasted tomatoes, and top with shredded basil or hummus, and some pine nuts. Use black beans and chipotles for a southwestern app. There are even recipes out there for fruit hummuses!

Recipe: Roasted Red Pepper Hummus With Pita Chips

1 can garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas); reserve liquid
1 spoonful (about 1/4-1/3 c.) tahini
3 tbsp. lemon juice (start with that and add more as desired)
3 oz. roasted red peppers
2-3 garlic cloves
salt
pinch (or more, if desired) cayenne pepper
1 tbsp. olive oil

pita bread
olive oil

In a food processor, combine chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, red peppers, garlic, salt, cayenne pepper, and olive oil. Add canned liquid from beans if mixture is too thick. Pulse until mixture is smooth and all ingredients have been pureed and well-combined. Adjust flavors for personal taste.

Cut pita bread into wedges. Spread out in a single layer on a baking sheet; drizzle lightly with olive oil. Bake at 350F for 15-30 minutes (depending on crunch preference.)

Serve!

Simple Pan-Fried Fish

This is my favorite way to prepare fish. It's quick, it's easy, it's simple, and it's really, really good. It works well with just about any fish (although I'd recommend using some kind of white fish, like walleye, cod, tilapia, etc.) It's so good you'll think it came from a restaurant--except that you made it!

Look how few ingredients it needs. (It also needs a little flour for dredging. And my lemon seems to have been absent while I was taking roll call.)

Well, we found the flour. Just a little flour seasoned with salt and pepper. A little Old Bay might be nice, too, if you had any in your spice drawer.

Lightly coat your fish in the flour mixture. Today I used a nice piece of cod. I cut it in half, to make it a more manageable size.

I melted a blend of butter and olive oil in a large pan.

Once they melted together and my  pan was hot, I carefully laid down my fish.

After 4-5 minutes, the fish became a nice golden brown. I carefully flipped it over. It was so large that I had to use two spatulas.

A note--since I had two pieces of fish,  I sauteed them separately so I wouldn't crowd the pan. If you do this, you may find that you need to add a little more butter and olive oil. If the pan starts to look dry, just add another drizzle of oil and you should be fine.

Once the fish has been on both sides and is fully cooked through, remove it from the pan and set it aside.  Mince up a shallot.

You could use regular onion, but shallots have such a nice, sweet flavor and are a great base for this sauce.

Add another bit of butter to the pan and throw in the shallots.

Saute the shallot until it starts to soften. Scrape up any little yummy brown bits left behind by the fish.

Pour in half a cup (half of one of those little bottles) of white wine. If you've got a gas stove, be careful of any alcohol-burning flames!

The juice from half a lemon will brighten the fish's flavor.

A dash of cream adds just a little richness.

And some fresh parsley gives a brownish sauce some color.

Give the sauce a stir and let all the newly-added ingredients heat up.















Pour your warm sauce over your fish. Give it another squeeze of lemon juice if you like. In less than half an hour, you should have a beautiful piece of fish covered with a tangy, lemony, slightly sweet sauce that tastes like it came from a professional kitchen. Give this recipe a try the next time you're in the mood for fish. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Recipe: Simple Pan-Fried Fish
1 large fish fillet (any whitefish)
flour
salt and pepper

1 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. olive oil

1 tbsp. butter
1 shallot, minced
1/2 c. white wine
juice from half a lemon
1 tbsp. cream
1 handful parsley, minced


In a large, flat dish, combine flour and salt and pepper. Lightly coat fish in flour mixture.

In a large pan, melt butter and olive oil over medium heat. Carefully add fish. Let each side cook for 4-5 minutes or until golden brown and fish is cooked all the way through. Remove fish from pan.

In the same pan, add butter and shallot. Saute until shallot is softened. Lower heat to medium-low. Add wine, lemon juice, cream, and parsley. Heat gently until sauce is hot. Spoon over the fish and serve.

Cherry Cheesecake Pie

This week, The Kid's preschool had a fundraiser dinner, and parents were requested to bring baked desserts (especially pie.) Always ready to send my kid along with massive amounts of baked goods, I made a Key Lime Pie, a regular sized Bourbon Pecan Pie, Third Trimester Chocolate Cake (in the form of cupcakes), and of course Tie-Dye Cupcakes. But I wanted to make something different, too, and one of the requests was for a cherry cheesecake pie.

This is a really simple recipe. I might have gone more complicated and made a true cheesecake base, but you saw my list of other baked goods--I had plenty of other stuff to do. So I made this quick and easy version instead.

The base begins with a brick of cream cheese. It's got to be room temperature--very important!

Dump the cream cheese into a mixing bowl, and then add the zest of half a lemon.

Start whipping the cream cheese (I used the whisk attachment on my mixer.) It's very important for the cream cheese to be very soft and fluffy when you start to add the other ingredients.

While the cream cheese is getting fluffy, track down a can of sweetened condensed milk.

Again, like I said in the Key Lime Pie recipe, this is not the same as evaporated milk. And you cannot use the two interchangeably. So make sure you get the right thing.

Open the can (and then wash your sticky hands.) Sloooooooowly drizzle the sweetened condensed milk into the mixing bowl, with the mixer running. You want to add the milk (hereon after known as SCM) just a bit at a time.

After about half the can has been added, stop the mixer and give the bowl a good scraping. In addition to the other things that I've said are important, it's also really important that the SCM and the cream cheese are well mixed.

Importance is important.

After you've scraped your bowl, you can turn the mixer back on and get back to adding the SCM.

Once all the SCM is added, just take a step back and let the mixer mix. At least 5 minutes--10 minutes is better.

All that beating time ensures that everything is well combined.

Remember the lemon zest? You'll also need the juice from that lemon. You'll probably need a couple of lemons (at least a lemon and a half), because you'll need to get about half a cup's worth.

Or, if you're smarter than me, you'll juice the lemon over a sieve, to catch all the seeds.

Yes, it seems like a lot of juice. But it's (also!) very important to use that amount. If you use less, your filling may not set, and, while it will still be delicious, won't be the most attractive pie ever constructed. Do not decrease the amount.

And please don't cheat. You really do need to use real lemons. Your pie might not set if you use bottled juice.

Turn your mixer back on and slowly pour in the lemon juice.

A little vanilla is the final filling ingredient.

Okay, now let your mixer keep going and step away again. Let me stress this--you cannot overmix this!

I used a chocolate crumb crust as the base for the cheesecake pie. You could use a regular graham crust, or a prebaked regular pie shell too.

And actually, while I'm thinking of it, if your store sells deep dish crusts, go with that. Otherwise, this filling makes enough for 2 regular-depth pies (because, keep in mind, you'll be pouring pie filling over the top of this as well.)

Pour the properly-beaten filling into the pie crust (or crusts.)

Smooth out the top and then pop your pie (or pies) into the fridge. 2 hours minimum, preferably 4 or overnight if you want to make sure your filling will set properly.

Right before you're ready to serve your pie, pour a can (or half a can, if you ended up with two pies) of your favorite pie filling over the top of the pie. I used cherry filling because, well, I'm advertising this as a cherry cheesecake pie. I can only imagine how fabulous this would be with blueberry filling!

Recipe: Cherry Cheesecake Pie

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
zest from half a lemon
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 c. fresh lemon juice (about 1 1/2 lemons)
1 tsp. vanilla

1-2 piecrusts (depending on depth)

1-2 cans cherry pie filling


In a large mixing bowl, combine cream cheese and lemon zest. Beat on high until cream cheese is light and fluffy.

Slowly pour in half the can of sweetened condensed milk. After half the can has been added, stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl. Continue adding the milk until the whole can has been incorporated. Mix on medium-high to high for at least 5 minutes.

Slowly add lemon juice and vanilla. Beat for another several minutes, or until mixture is thickened slightly and very smooth.

Pour filling into pie crust(s) and smooth the tops. Refrigerate for at least 2-4 hours, or overnight.

Top pie(s) with pie filling before serving.

Furiously Fast Pickles

I've gone public here in proclaiming my dislike of pickles. But for some reason, whether it be the coming warm weather or something else, I've been craving a good, crisp dill pickle. (And no, it's not pregnancy, I promise!)

I still can't bring myself to buying a whole jar of them (what if someone saw me!?) But I found these great little Persian cucumbers this weekend and decided it was time to take the plunge.

The Persians work well because they are seedless. You could probably pull something similar off with a regular cucumber; just remember to wash it (and peel it, if it has a wax coating) and use a spoon to scoop out the seeds after you cut them in half.

My quick pickle brine started with some cider vinegar.

And yes, I'm measuring liquid in a dry measuring cup. I made lots of cupcakes today and most of my measuring things were dirty.

I poured the vinegar into a small pot and added some sugar. I like my pickles a little sweet--I'm not really into pickles that pucker your face.

Mustard seeds give the pickles that "pickle" taste. I don't have many uses for mustard seeds so I was glad to use some up!

A bit of salt was next.

Finally, I gave a clove of garlic a good smashy smash. This made the garlic paper easy to remove, as well as helped the garlic give up more of its flavor.

I turned the heat under the pot to medium. The heat will dissolve the salt and sugar.

While the brine was heating up, I started work on my cucumbers.

I always find food described as "seedless" confusing. But whatever.

I halved the cucumbers, and then quartered them. You could slice them instead, but to me, dill pickles are spears and sweet pickles are slices. I know that's not always the case, but spears are what I think of when I think dill pickle.

I lay the spears in a wide container; I cut up 3 cucumbers' worth. That was enough to cover the bottom of the container.

You've probably been wondering when we were going to bring the dill to the dill pickles. Well, now is the time.

I used dried dill because I had it on hand. I would have loved to use fresh, though--I do love the taste and smell of fresh dill! I guess I'll have to make these again in the summer.

I sprinkled the dill over the cucumber spears. Then I added a bay leaf.

If you like spicy dill pickles, you could add a pinch of crushed red pepper now.

By this time, your brine should be gently bubbling, with the salt and sugar fully dissolved.

Pour the hot brine right over the cucumbers.















Let your pickles rest until they reach an "eating" temperature. I popped mine in the fridge for a few hours because I love a cold, crisp pickle. You can eat them right away or you can let them sit for a few days. The first day, they're like a mildly dill-y cucumber, with a lot of crisp bite. After 3 days (which is how long they lasted in our house!) they're a little floppier, but are still crisp, with a sharper and more pronounced flavor. I think these may be my new favorite way to eat cucumbers!

Recipe: Furiously Fast Pickles

1/2 c. apple cider vinegar
2 1/2 tsp. white sugar
1 tsp. mustard seed
1 tsp. salt
1 clove garlic, smashed (and roughly chopped, if desired)
3 Persian cucumbers, quartered
1 tsp. dried dill (or 3-4 tsp. fresh)
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper (optional)


In a small pot, combine cider vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, salt, and garlic. Heat over medium heat until mixture bubbles and sugar and salt are dissolved.

In a shallow dish, combine cucumbers, dill, bay leaf, and red pepper. Pour hot brine over the cucumbers. Allow cucumbers to cool (at room temperature or in the refrigerator.) Serve.