I love Friday nights. I am a little more willing to put some time and effort into what I eat on Friday nights, since I don't have to get up in, like, four hours. That means a sort of "happy hour" around here, with some sort of adult beverage and a snackie of some kind.
This is it for tonight: Samuel Adams and cheddar-beer spread on bagel chips. You can buy all kinds of cheese spread in the grocery store, but you can also make your own, it's easy and it's delicious. Here's the thing: simmer the beer. It gets rid of the raw alcohol taste and mellows it, making it a really nice soft counterpoint to good sharp cheddar cheese. It's an extra step, but it's worth doing. All of these flavors come together and complement each other, making something so much bigger than the sum of its parts.
Spread it on crusty toasted bread, or crackers, or--oh, here's something: stuffed into celery. Nomnomnomnomnom.
Cheddar-Beer Spread
1 pound sharp or extra-sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
4 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
4 tablespoons butter, room temperature
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed through a garlic press
2 shallots, very finely minced
1 cup domestic beer (a not-too-hoppy, light beer is good, like a pale ale)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
pinch of salt
pinch of cayenne
In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, bring the beer to a simmer until reduced to about 2/3 cup. Remove from heat and let cool completely.
Combine cheeses, butter, garlic, shallots, salt, pepper, and cayenne in the bowl of a food processor. Process until the mixture is smooth and homogenous, at least 1 minute. With the processor running, pour in the beer, and continue to process until the beer is completely incorporated.
Chill for at least an hour. Serve with toasts or crackers.
Ed.: Due to the monster storms that blew through the area on Wednesday, our internet service has been up and down. This should have gone up yesterday, but we were in an outage. Forgive me.
Showing posts with label Dip. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dip. Show all posts
Friday, June 6, 2008
Friday, May 9, 2008
May 9: Bacon, Scallion and Caramelized Onion Dip
Sunday is Mother's Day. My mother will be here for a short visit on the 23rd, and I anticipate eating well while she is here. My mother loves great, extravagant food, has a huge sweet tooth, and will eat anything. She is a lot of fun to cook for, because everything is the best thing she's ever had.
One of my favorite things that my mother makes is tuna noodle casserole, with canned cream of mushroom soup and frozen peas and buttered breadcrumbs on top. I am not going to bother with the recipe for that. It's ubiquitous and everybody's had it and either loved it or hated it, so I won't bother. Take my word, though, that my mother makes delicious tuna noodle casserole.
Instead, here is something that my mother would love. I inherited my love of dip from her. I would serve this with a variety of crackers, or maybe just eat it with a spoon alone in my living room.
Bacon, Scallion, and Caramelized Onion Dip
1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon light brown sugar
1 pound onions, root end cut off, halved pole to pole, peeled, and sliced 1/4 inch thick across the grain
1/2 tablespoon water
Ground black pepper
3 slices bacon (about 3 ounces), cut into 1/4-inch pieces
2 scallions, minced
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
3/4 cup sour cream
1. Heat butter and oil in 12-inch nonstick skillet over high heat; when foam subsides, stir in salt and sugar. Add onions and stir to coat; cook, stirring occasionally, until onions begin to soften and release some moisture, about 5 minutes. Reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring frequently, until onions are deeply browned and slightly sticky, about 40 minutes longer. (If onions are sizzling or scorching, reduce heat. If onions are not browning after 15 to 20 minutes, raise heat.) Off heat, stir in water; season to taste with pepper. (Can be refrigerated in airtight container for up to 7 days.)
2. Fry 3 slices (about 3 ounces) bacon, in small skillet over medium heat until crisp, about 5 minutes; remove with slotted spoon to paper towel–lined plate and set aside.
3. Combine caramelized onions, cider vinegar, scallions, sour cream, and bacon in medium bowl. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve. (Can be refrigerated in airtight container for up to 3 days.)
One of my favorite things that my mother makes is tuna noodle casserole, with canned cream of mushroom soup and frozen peas and buttered breadcrumbs on top. I am not going to bother with the recipe for that. It's ubiquitous and everybody's had it and either loved it or hated it, so I won't bother. Take my word, though, that my mother makes delicious tuna noodle casserole.
Instead, here is something that my mother would love. I inherited my love of dip from her. I would serve this with a variety of crackers, or maybe just eat it with a spoon alone in my living room.
Bacon, Scallion, and Caramelized Onion Dip
1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon light brown sugar
1 pound onions, root end cut off, halved pole to pole, peeled, and sliced 1/4 inch thick across the grain
1/2 tablespoon water
Ground black pepper
3 slices bacon (about 3 ounces), cut into 1/4-inch pieces
2 scallions, minced
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
3/4 cup sour cream
1. Heat butter and oil in 12-inch nonstick skillet over high heat; when foam subsides, stir in salt and sugar. Add onions and stir to coat; cook, stirring occasionally, until onions begin to soften and release some moisture, about 5 minutes. Reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring frequently, until onions are deeply browned and slightly sticky, about 40 minutes longer. (If onions are sizzling or scorching, reduce heat. If onions are not browning after 15 to 20 minutes, raise heat.) Off heat, stir in water; season to taste with pepper. (Can be refrigerated in airtight container for up to 7 days.)
2. Fry 3 slices (about 3 ounces) bacon, in small skillet over medium heat until crisp, about 5 minutes; remove with slotted spoon to paper towel–lined plate and set aside.
3. Combine caramelized onions, cider vinegar, scallions, sour cream, and bacon in medium bowl. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve. (Can be refrigerated in airtight container for up to 3 days.)
Thursday, March 13, 2008
March 13: Tapenade
I got my start as a food blogger writing about dip.
I wrote about how much I love dip, how, for me, things like raw veggies and chips and French bread are like little delivery trucks, bringing total goodness from a bowl in front of my face straight to my mouth: Hello, lover.
One time, a few years ago, I went to an art tour with my mother in a series of venues downtown. Some of them had great wine and snacks, some of them had Two Buck Chuck and cubes of grocery-store cheese, and one place had vegan health food snacks. Never one to pass up even questionable vegan dip, I dipped a carrot stick in the bowl of the curious greyish substance, and ate it. Filled with an immediate and pervasive sense of deep regret, I sought out some kind of awful deathberry-wheatgrass juice blend to try to wash down the mystery dip. It was the only time I can remember dip being a totally unredeemably bad, nothing good about it. I can't even fathom what on earth was in it.
On the other end of the spectrum is the year that my stepfather was in Guam with the Red Cross at Thanksgiving--he is a retired high school administrator who got tired of playing golf so he went to work doing disaster relief--and my grandmother and uncle were in North Carolina, and it was just going to be my mother and I, so we went to a friend of hers' house. The snacks before dinner that day were great, one of the reasons that I vastly prefer Thanksgiving Snacks to Thanksgiving Dinner. One of the snacks was tapenade.
Tapenade is a dark, lusty sauce that tastes like Greece, Southern France, and Italy, all mixed up together. When I tell you that it's pretty much the greatest thing ever, I'm not overselling the thing. Cut the top quarter off a pint of cherry tomatoes, hollow them out with a teaspoon, and stuff them with tapenade. Mix it into the stuffing for hard-boiled eggs. Thin it out and use it for a dip for crudites, toss it with cold pasta. Spread it on bruschetta, top it with goat cheese, and broil it briefly. Put it on grilled cheese sandwiches. Tapenade is great stuff.
The ingredient list is long and full of things that I don't generally keep on hand, like anchovies and capers and fresh thyme. Tapenade isn't something I make often, but occasionally, I'll go ahead and do it, just because it's so good. Don't worry about the anchovies--they don't make the thing taste fishy, they just round out the flavors into something bigger than the sum of its parts.
Okay, the "black" olives: listen, don't go buy a can of black olives in the olive aisle at the grocery store. Go to your Fresh Fields or your Whole Foods or whatever grocery store you like. Buy great, great-tasting olives off the olive bar, those little black wrinkly ones or kalamatas or--whatever you like, basically, as long as they taste good and they don't taste like the can that they come in.
Tapenade
1/2 pound black olives, pitted, drained of their liquid
4 anchovy fillets
2 tablespoons capers, drained
1 garlic clove, peeled
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon grated orange zest
8 sprigs of thyme, leaves only
4 tablespoons olive oil
Place all the ingredients except the olive oil in the work bowl of a food processor. Pulse to blend. Add the oil and pulse a few more times to form a cohesive but still coarse paste.
I wrote about how much I love dip, how, for me, things like raw veggies and chips and French bread are like little delivery trucks, bringing total goodness from a bowl in front of my face straight to my mouth: Hello, lover.
One time, a few years ago, I went to an art tour with my mother in a series of venues downtown. Some of them had great wine and snacks, some of them had Two Buck Chuck and cubes of grocery-store cheese, and one place had vegan health food snacks. Never one to pass up even questionable vegan dip, I dipped a carrot stick in the bowl of the curious greyish substance, and ate it. Filled with an immediate and pervasive sense of deep regret, I sought out some kind of awful deathberry-wheatgrass juice blend to try to wash down the mystery dip. It was the only time I can remember dip being a totally unredeemably bad, nothing good about it. I can't even fathom what on earth was in it.
On the other end of the spectrum is the year that my stepfather was in Guam with the Red Cross at Thanksgiving--he is a retired high school administrator who got tired of playing golf so he went to work doing disaster relief--and my grandmother and uncle were in North Carolina, and it was just going to be my mother and I, so we went to a friend of hers' house. The snacks before dinner that day were great, one of the reasons that I vastly prefer Thanksgiving Snacks to Thanksgiving Dinner. One of the snacks was tapenade.
Tapenade is a dark, lusty sauce that tastes like Greece, Southern France, and Italy, all mixed up together. When I tell you that it's pretty much the greatest thing ever, I'm not overselling the thing. Cut the top quarter off a pint of cherry tomatoes, hollow them out with a teaspoon, and stuff them with tapenade. Mix it into the stuffing for hard-boiled eggs. Thin it out and use it for a dip for crudites, toss it with cold pasta. Spread it on bruschetta, top it with goat cheese, and broil it briefly. Put it on grilled cheese sandwiches. Tapenade is great stuff.
The ingredient list is long and full of things that I don't generally keep on hand, like anchovies and capers and fresh thyme. Tapenade isn't something I make often, but occasionally, I'll go ahead and do it, just because it's so good. Don't worry about the anchovies--they don't make the thing taste fishy, they just round out the flavors into something bigger than the sum of its parts.
Okay, the "black" olives: listen, don't go buy a can of black olives in the olive aisle at the grocery store. Go to your Fresh Fields or your Whole Foods or whatever grocery store you like. Buy great, great-tasting olives off the olive bar, those little black wrinkly ones or kalamatas or--whatever you like, basically, as long as they taste good and they don't taste like the can that they come in.
Tapenade
1/2 pound black olives, pitted, drained of their liquid
4 anchovy fillets
2 tablespoons capers, drained
1 garlic clove, peeled
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon grated orange zest
8 sprigs of thyme, leaves only
4 tablespoons olive oil
Place all the ingredients except the olive oil in the work bowl of a food processor. Pulse to blend. Add the oil and pulse a few more times to form a cohesive but still coarse paste.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
February 2: Roasted Tomato Salsa
If I were told that I had to accept only one nationality of food for the rest of my life, it would be Mexican. It really would. I have loved Mexican food all my life, and I would rather have a bowl of great chips and really good spicy salsa than any other kind of snack on earth. Just this week, a blogger who goes by the name Homesick Texan wrote about nachos, how the best were just a great corn chip topped with longhorn Cheddar cheese and a slice of jalapeno. I couldn't agree more. That is a great nacho. Pure. Straightforward. A thing of beauty.
The thing about real Mexican food (I am not talking about a burrito from Chipotle either) is that it is simple ingredients made to taste good by poor people. Why do you think southern food tastes so good? Who first started cooking black eyed peas and greens with the pieces of the meat that rich people threw away? The slaves, that's who--they were carrying on their culinary traditions the best way they could with very few real resources. Real Mexican food isn't covered in melted cheese and Old El Paso taco sauce. It isn't folded inside a perfectly round, thinly-pressed, flaky flour tortilla or in a fried corn taco shell.
I am crazy about my husband but I have a tiny crush on Rick Bayless. He is an American chef who is as crazy for Mexican food as I am. He has two Mexican restaurants in Chicago, Topolobampo and Frontera Grill. The Frontera brand salsas you see in grocery stores? Those are his. He also has a PBS cooking show that I miss more often than I see it, which is a shame because he is always cooking something like a spice paste-rubbed pork shoulder wrapped in avocado leaves and slow-cooked over a low fire for hours. Man oh man.
Luckily for me, he writes cookbooks. My mother gave me one in 1999, called Salsas That Cook. I can count the number of actual jars of salsa I've purchased since then on one hand. Why should I buy a jar of tomato-paste-flavored, dull, over-processed, additive-laden imitation salsa when I can make my own so easily? Even in the dead of winter, when tomatoes are...well, how many times have I mentioned what I think of mid-winter tomatoes? Anyway, Rick Bayless makes flawless, amazing, delicious salsa of every imaginable variety, and the importance of the quality of the ingredients is diminished substantially by his cooking methods.
Roast a tomato in a very hot oven, even a bad tomato, and it becomes, at worst, entirely tolerable. Roast it along with thick slices of onion and whole peppers and cloves of garlic and it becomes something magical. This is my go-to guy when it comes to salsa. It is as great on chips as it is next to a cheese quesadilla or on top of a chicken enchilada. Something about the oven transforms these ingredients, which are perfectly fine raw--I am a big fan of pico de gallo, that staple of your local Mexican restaurant--into a complex, rich, great big taste.
This makes about a cup of salsa, which isn't enough. I double it, and occasionally, I make three or four times this recipe and freeze it. It freezes really well.
Roasted Tomato-Jalapeno Salsa
4 medium vine-ripened tomatoes
1 white onion, sliced into 1/2 inch thick rings and separated
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1-2 fresh jalapeno peppers
1/4 cup finely minced cilantro
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
salt to taste
Preheat broiler. Place rack in topmost position under broiler.
In a sheet pan lined with foil, arrange the tomatoes, onions, garlic, and peppers. Broil, stirring occasionally, until onions are very dark. The tomatoes may need a few more minutes until they are losing their shape. Remove from oven, let cool slightly, 10 minutes or so.
Put all ingredients into bowl of food processor fitted with chopping blade. Pulse in one-second pulses until ingredients are well chopped and combined. Taste for salt. Cool until chilled, stir, and serve.
The thing about real Mexican food (I am not talking about a burrito from Chipotle either) is that it is simple ingredients made to taste good by poor people. Why do you think southern food tastes so good? Who first started cooking black eyed peas and greens with the pieces of the meat that rich people threw away? The slaves, that's who--they were carrying on their culinary traditions the best way they could with very few real resources. Real Mexican food isn't covered in melted cheese and Old El Paso taco sauce. It isn't folded inside a perfectly round, thinly-pressed, flaky flour tortilla or in a fried corn taco shell.
I am crazy about my husband but I have a tiny crush on Rick Bayless. He is an American chef who is as crazy for Mexican food as I am. He has two Mexican restaurants in Chicago, Topolobampo and Frontera Grill. The Frontera brand salsas you see in grocery stores? Those are his. He also has a PBS cooking show that I miss more often than I see it, which is a shame because he is always cooking something like a spice paste-rubbed pork shoulder wrapped in avocado leaves and slow-cooked over a low fire for hours. Man oh man.
Luckily for me, he writes cookbooks. My mother gave me one in 1999, called Salsas That Cook. I can count the number of actual jars of salsa I've purchased since then on one hand. Why should I buy a jar of tomato-paste-flavored, dull, over-processed, additive-laden imitation salsa when I can make my own so easily? Even in the dead of winter, when tomatoes are...well, how many times have I mentioned what I think of mid-winter tomatoes? Anyway, Rick Bayless makes flawless, amazing, delicious salsa of every imaginable variety, and the importance of the quality of the ingredients is diminished substantially by his cooking methods.
Roast a tomato in a very hot oven, even a bad tomato, and it becomes, at worst, entirely tolerable. Roast it along with thick slices of onion and whole peppers and cloves of garlic and it becomes something magical. This is my go-to guy when it comes to salsa. It is as great on chips as it is next to a cheese quesadilla or on top of a chicken enchilada. Something about the oven transforms these ingredients, which are perfectly fine raw--I am a big fan of pico de gallo, that staple of your local Mexican restaurant--into a complex, rich, great big taste.
This makes about a cup of salsa, which isn't enough. I double it, and occasionally, I make three or four times this recipe and freeze it. It freezes really well.
Roasted Tomato-Jalapeno Salsa
4 medium vine-ripened tomatoes
1 white onion, sliced into 1/2 inch thick rings and separated
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1-2 fresh jalapeno peppers
1/4 cup finely minced cilantro
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
salt to taste
Preheat broiler. Place rack in topmost position under broiler.
In a sheet pan lined with foil, arrange the tomatoes, onions, garlic, and peppers. Broil, stirring occasionally, until onions are very dark. The tomatoes may need a few more minutes until they are losing their shape. Remove from oven, let cool slightly, 10 minutes or so.
Put all ingredients into bowl of food processor fitted with chopping blade. Pulse in one-second pulses until ingredients are well chopped and combined. Taste for salt. Cool until chilled, stir, and serve.
Friday, February 1, 2008
February 1: Hummus, Three Ways
Kimberly asked me about hummus in the comments yesterday. Clearly, my best friend has an excellent grasp on the depth and breadth of my love of dip of all kinds. Kimberly is trying to avoid becoming hopelessly bloated and swollen while pregnant and so is trying to reduce sodium by avoiding packaged products. Good for you, I say; I became hopelessly bloated and swollen while pregnant, and it is not comfortable for very long to keep your feet elevated above the level of your head.
Mmmm, hummus. I have recently been banned by my husband from making hummus, sadly, for two reasons: I love to throw so much garlic in it that I smell like a Middle Eastern restaurant, and because it lately hasn't been agreeing with me, and while I smell like a Middle Eastern restaurant, the air immediately surrounding me smells far worse. That might have been what my husband refers to as an "over-share."
And even worse, I don't really have a recipe per se for hummus. I find most of the recipes for them really unsatisfying, except for one in a cookbook called Pita the Great. But hummus is really nothing more than a Middle-Eastern bean dip, made even better by the addition of chewy, toasty pita bread chips drizzled with a little olive oil and baked in the oven. I make hummus with pantry staples in varying amounts, based on what I'm craving. Spicy? More cayenne. Tarty? More lemon juice. Plus, you can add all kinds of things to hummus, and add hummus to all kinds of things.
I am worried I oversold this recipe slightly to Kimberly as being "not a lot of work." Our standards might be a little different in this regard. But it won't kill you, and in fact might make you a convert.
One note about chickpeas: most canned chickpeas come with a funny skin on them. This will not ruin your hummus, but I am sort of a freak. I individually hull each chickpea because I am a freak for that great smooth texture. Also, because I am just kind of a freak, in general.
And also, one note about garlic: Look, I will admit it. I do over-do the garlic in the hummus a little. Add less if you want. But the whole skillet toasting thing I am about to describe will tame some of the garlicky garlic-ness. If it's a step you'd rather skip, than by all means, consider this nothing more than a guideline, but maybe you might, you know, hold it back to maybe three cloves of garlic. Or less.
Basic Hummus
1 can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed
2 tablespoons tahini (sesame seed paste)
5 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons lemon juice, or to taste
pinch cayenne pepper
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Olive oil (approximately 1/4 cup, plus extra for drizzling, if you drizzle, depending on how loose you like your hummus and how much lemon juice you add)
For garnish:
1/2 cup pitted, chopped kalamata olives
cayenne
olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh chopped parsley
Heat a small skillet over medium-high heat. Put the peeled whole garlic cloves in the pan. Shaking the pan every few seconds, toast the garlic until it begins to darken, 3-5 minutes total. Remove, cool slightly. Don't let it burn. If it burns throw it out and start over; it will be gross and bitter.
If you decide not to toast your garlic, mince it or press it.
In a food processor fitted with the chopping blade, put all the ingredients but the olive oil and garnishes. Process 30 seconds, or until things are well-chopped and combined. With the blade running, slowly pour in the olive oil until everything forms a cohesive thick texture, or not so thick, depending on what you like.
Chill for an hour or so to let the flavors meld together. Garnish it with a drizzle of olive oil, a handful of chopped olives, a sprinkle of cayenne, a smidge of parsley, or any combination of any of these. Serve with toasted pita wedges tossed with 2 tablespoons olive oil and toasted in a 350 oven until lightly golden. If you don't want all the excess bad stuff, you can serve with cucumber slices and baby carrots.
The following is easy and a little more luxurious, sort of a cross between bean dip and a Middle Eastern fondue. Still great with toasted pita, or maybe grilled French bread rounds.
Hot Hummus With Feta and Olives
1 recipe of hummus (see above)
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
1 cup pitted, chopped kalamata olives
Preheat oven to 350.
Put hummus in a heatproof oven-safe dish. Stir in feta and olives.
Bake hummus for 15-20 minutes, or until the dish is hot and cheese is melted. Serve. If needed, keep warm in a chafing dish.
Here's what to do with your leftover hummus: make a great veggie wrap. This is a veggie wrap even a meat-eater could love. It's very adaptable--add more stuff you like, leave out whatever you don't like.
Veggie Wrap With Avocado and Hummus
1 cup leftover hummus
4 slices smoked provolone cheese, cut in half lengthwise
1 ripe avocado, peeled and sliced
1/4 red onion, thinly sliced
1 tomato, diced
1 cup romaine lettuce, chopped
1/2 cup chopped kalamata olives
salt and pepper to taste
4 10-inch flour tortillas
Divide hummus evenly and spread on tortillas. Down the middle of each tortilla, layer cheese, avocado slices, onion, tomatoes, lettuce, and olives. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Fold in right and left ends of tortilla and wrap from bottom up. Cut each tortilla in half on an angle and if needed, secure with a toothpick. Serve.
Mmmm, hummus. I have recently been banned by my husband from making hummus, sadly, for two reasons: I love to throw so much garlic in it that I smell like a Middle Eastern restaurant, and because it lately hasn't been agreeing with me, and while I smell like a Middle Eastern restaurant, the air immediately surrounding me smells far worse. That might have been what my husband refers to as an "over-share."
And even worse, I don't really have a recipe per se for hummus. I find most of the recipes for them really unsatisfying, except for one in a cookbook called Pita the Great. But hummus is really nothing more than a Middle-Eastern bean dip, made even better by the addition of chewy, toasty pita bread chips drizzled with a little olive oil and baked in the oven. I make hummus with pantry staples in varying amounts, based on what I'm craving. Spicy? More cayenne. Tarty? More lemon juice. Plus, you can add all kinds of things to hummus, and add hummus to all kinds of things.
I am worried I oversold this recipe slightly to Kimberly as being "not a lot of work." Our standards might be a little different in this regard. But it won't kill you, and in fact might make you a convert.
One note about chickpeas: most canned chickpeas come with a funny skin on them. This will not ruin your hummus, but I am sort of a freak. I individually hull each chickpea because I am a freak for that great smooth texture. Also, because I am just kind of a freak, in general.
And also, one note about garlic: Look, I will admit it. I do over-do the garlic in the hummus a little. Add less if you want. But the whole skillet toasting thing I am about to describe will tame some of the garlicky garlic-ness. If it's a step you'd rather skip, than by all means, consider this nothing more than a guideline, but maybe you might, you know, hold it back to maybe three cloves of garlic. Or less.
Basic Hummus
1 can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed
2 tablespoons tahini (sesame seed paste)
5 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons lemon juice, or to taste
pinch cayenne pepper
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Olive oil (approximately 1/4 cup, plus extra for drizzling, if you drizzle, depending on how loose you like your hummus and how much lemon juice you add)
For garnish:
1/2 cup pitted, chopped kalamata olives
cayenne
olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh chopped parsley
Heat a small skillet over medium-high heat. Put the peeled whole garlic cloves in the pan. Shaking the pan every few seconds, toast the garlic until it begins to darken, 3-5 minutes total. Remove, cool slightly. Don't let it burn. If it burns throw it out and start over; it will be gross and bitter.
If you decide not to toast your garlic, mince it or press it.
In a food processor fitted with the chopping blade, put all the ingredients but the olive oil and garnishes. Process 30 seconds, or until things are well-chopped and combined. With the blade running, slowly pour in the olive oil until everything forms a cohesive thick texture, or not so thick, depending on what you like.
Chill for an hour or so to let the flavors meld together. Garnish it with a drizzle of olive oil, a handful of chopped olives, a sprinkle of cayenne, a smidge of parsley, or any combination of any of these. Serve with toasted pita wedges tossed with 2 tablespoons olive oil and toasted in a 350 oven until lightly golden. If you don't want all the excess bad stuff, you can serve with cucumber slices and baby carrots.
The following is easy and a little more luxurious, sort of a cross between bean dip and a Middle Eastern fondue. Still great with toasted pita, or maybe grilled French bread rounds.
Hot Hummus With Feta and Olives
1 recipe of hummus (see above)
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
1 cup pitted, chopped kalamata olives
Preheat oven to 350.
Put hummus in a heatproof oven-safe dish. Stir in feta and olives.
Bake hummus for 15-20 minutes, or until the dish is hot and cheese is melted. Serve. If needed, keep warm in a chafing dish.
Here's what to do with your leftover hummus: make a great veggie wrap. This is a veggie wrap even a meat-eater could love. It's very adaptable--add more stuff you like, leave out whatever you don't like.
Veggie Wrap With Avocado and Hummus
1 cup leftover hummus
4 slices smoked provolone cheese, cut in half lengthwise
1 ripe avocado, peeled and sliced
1/4 red onion, thinly sliced
1 tomato, diced
1 cup romaine lettuce, chopped
1/2 cup chopped kalamata olives
salt and pepper to taste
4 10-inch flour tortillas
Divide hummus evenly and spread on tortillas. Down the middle of each tortilla, layer cheese, avocado slices, onion, tomatoes, lettuce, and olives. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Fold in right and left ends of tortilla and wrap from bottom up. Cut each tortilla in half on an angle and if needed, secure with a toothpick. Serve.
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