Last year I grew the Ichiban Eggplant and discovered a velvety, creamy, vanilla flavor when I roasted the fruit. This year, I put in another and we’re reaping the benefits tonight. So this:
Became this:
Which I cooked at 400 degrees F until nicely roasted. Then BabyDaddy scraped out the flesh (while I heated the pita. I’m a poet and I didn’t know it!)
Then I mixed the flesh in the blender with:
lemon juice
1 garlic clove
salt
olive oil
cumin
smoked paprika (optional but AWESOME)
tahini
And you have Baba Ganoush.
I do love these little feet. I love them best in sandals with dirty kid toes…
So Very Good.
(Let me know how much you love the short before the movie. All of the Recipes were in stitches.)
This is a beautiful, wonderful, very good movie. See it thrice.
RockStar took this picture of her empty ice cream bowl as her first representation of Summer. Yum.
I’m so in love with this. It’s expensive and goes bad quickly and it’s yummy and makes hummus into a sexy food again. I made hummus from scratch (because MamaSketchy is on an enforced vacation and feels the need to cook away her blues) today and I tried it with just cumin and just smoked paprika. The paprika kicked the cumin’s bootay. Here’s the hookup:
Hummus Among Us (The Hard Way)
1 bag of dried chickpeas
water
1/2 tsp baking soda
the time alloted to the unemployed
juice of 2 lemons
tahini
garlic clove
olive oil
ground cumin or smoked paprika
salt
Soak the chickpeas overnight. Drain, cover chickpeas with water by one inch, and cook with baking soda over medium heat for 1-2 hours, or until soft (adding water if necessary). Drain and let cool. Haul out your blender or food processor. Put half the lemon juice and one whole garlic clove in machine with a tsp of salt. Puree. Add a reasonable amount of chickpeas, oil, tahini, and cumin or smoked paprika. Add water if you’re blending. Puree until smooth. Correct seasonings. Store in the fridge for 3-4 days, if you’re lucky!
You’ve made a half batch. Repeat process from lemon juice or make channa masala with the leftover chickpeas.
EZ Chana Masala
1 tbs oil or ghee
1 tbs garam masala or curry powder
1 can diced tomatoes
leftover cooked chickpeas
salt & pepper to taste
Heat oil over medium in a large skillet. Add garam masala or curry powder and cook in hot oil for 30 seconds. Add chickpeas and toss to coat. Add tomatoes and lower to a simmer. Simmer for ten minutes. Serve over rice with yogurt and Major Grey’s mango chutney.
Skin tone. BabyDaddy (melanin boy) & Sketchy (fishbelly white), but I do know that it’s summer by his savage tan!
*A Cautionary Tale*
First the bizarre! I bought 62 food items from my grocer, including produce, dairy, & meat, and the total was $134.00. TRUST ME, that has never, ever, ever happened in the Recipe house. That is about one hippie/canvas/reusable bag for us. We can economize!
Now the tragic. The SR method of potato bakery involves a spud, a cotton towel, and a microwave. Then you wrap the hot tater in foil and let it percolate for about 15 minutes.
Had I known that this towel had a martyr complex,
or wanted to make a statement about the environmental effects of casual microwave use,
I would have listened and kept it in general dish drying rotation. But NOOOOOOO. It had to catch on fire, causing me to throw it out the back door, panic, and douse it with a carafe of water.
What The Hell? – I don’t mind telling you that I have had to have an extra glass of box wine to get through this. And I’m not the only one who is traumatized.
Everyone who reads here knows that my photos, um, suck, but in an attempt at self-improvement the Recipes will attempt to capture our essence of Summer in 10 pictures. The idea was inspired from this post at Sewing for Cherubs.
Here’s Mama Sketchy’s first photo:
Brand, spanking new gardens.
Anyone remember that commercial? Anyone besides me? (By the way, I’ve had to edit this post about 10 times. I hope like hell that you all like Iced Tea.)
In any case, I found myself leafing through my trusty loose leaf notebook yesterday, searching diligently for my old Cook’s Illustrated iced tea recipe. It was nowhere to be found and for 1 minute I thought I might have break down and get one of those free trials for their website. Then I’d never cancel and I’d end up paying for it for the rest of my life (Hi Netflix, you wily bastards. No late fees my heiner.) LUCKILY, I managed to find my favorite iced tea recipe in the free section of the site. I will now share the SR tips and tricks to the basic recipe.
Cook’s Illustrated Iced Tea a la Sketchy
5 bags Luzianne, strings tied to a bamboo skewer
1 quart water
6 tbs sugar (optional)
ice and more water
Put the tea bags and water in a cold pan. Start a timer for 10 minutes. Turn heat to medium low. When the timer goes off, the water should be dark and steamy with tiny bubbles. Take pan off of the heat. Mix sugar and and about one cup of water in a pitcher. Mix until sugar dissolves. Remove bags from tea. Stir hot tea from pan into sugar water. Add ice and water to preferred octane level.
Do this every day for all 8 months of Summer.
