imafoodblog.com

This is a really simple hummus recipe and is a great base for making various flavored versions.

I have made this hummus many times and I like to use it to make simple healthy sandwiches as well as just dip stuff in it.

This time I made a super delicious hummus and sprouts sandwich. Exciting, huh? Do you want to run out to the store right now and make this?! Well it is no cheesy, buttery, meat filled sandwich, but it is tasty, fresh, and satisfying. I enjoy the various kinds of sandwich sprouts, so that is what I topped my hummus with . I don’t really have a favorite sprout, I will just buy whatever looks the best that day. If they look very wet and/or have an unpleasant odor, I don’t buy them. You can find them in the produce section of your grocery store, usually near the fresh herbs. If you don’t enjoy sprouts, you can top this sandwich with cucumbers, radishes, tomatoes, roasted red peppers, olives, sliced chicken or turkey, etc., or anything else you can think of.

This hummus recipe comes from our good friend Dianna. She gave it to me a while ago, and I have finally gotten around to writing about it. Sometimes I am really lazy.

Dianna’s Easy & Delicious Hummus
by Sara at imafoodblog.com

Ingredients

• 1 15 oz can of garbanzo beans or 2 cups of cooked garbanzo beans, reserve bean liquid
• 2-3 garlic cloves, to taste
• 1/4 cup tahini
• 1-2 lemons, zested & juiced
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup olive oil

Directions

1. If using dried garbanzos: soak dried beans overnight (8-12 hours) in a bowl of water in the fridge. Then boil the beans in a large pot of water until the beans reach the desired consistency (the desired consistency = soft and edible). Reserve some of the bean cooking liquid for the hummus.
* Note - If I go through the trouble of cooking the dried beans, I make more than I need for this recipe. Then I freeze them in small ziploc bags in 2 cup servings and cover them with the bean cooking liquid. They freeze well and then I can just pull out a bag when I am in the mood for some good hummus or other bean dip. I believe last time I did this I made 2 cups of dried beans and got about 6 cups of cooked beans out of it.
2. If you are using canned beans - drain the beans and reserve the liquid.
3. In a large food processor, add the beans, garlic, tahini, lemon zest, lemon juice, cumin, paprika, salt, and pepper. You may want to start on the lower end of the garlic and lemon juice and then add more if needed to taste. Pulse until the beans are broken up into a thick paste consistency.
4. With the processor running, add the olive oil in a slow steady stream (think pesto). You will most likely also need to add some of the reserved bean liquid (especially if you have used dried beans) or water if you did not keep the bean liquid. Stream in the reserved bean water or regular water until the desired consistency is reached. Allow the mixture to process for at least a minute or two to completely break up the beans. I like my hummus to be very light and silky and smooth - not stiff and thick. To achieve this, I usually add between 1/4 - 1/2 cup of bean water and I make sure that the beans are totally pulverized. If you don’t let the food processor do its thing for long enough, your hummus will be chunkier and a bit grainy. Just think about the consistency of your favorite hummus and try to emulate that.
5. Adjust the salt and pepper and other seasonings to taste.
6. To store - place in a plastic container and then coat the top with some more olive oil (this will keep it moist) and sprinkle some more paprika on top (a bit more flavor and a nice color). Hummus is best eaten at room temperature.

If you like this recipe, you may also like my roasted red pepper hummus.

From this:

To this:

And then to this:

So simple and yummy:

French onion soup is one of the great pleasures of my life; rich beefy broth, sweet soft onions, buttery bread, and gooey crusty cheese, Really, how could you not like this? It is ultimate comfort food, if you can get someone else to make it for you that is. Because if you want to make this for yourself to comfort you on a cold night or after a long day, by the time this recipe is ready you will have forgotten why you wanted to make it for yourself in the first place. Don’t let that scare you away though. All I am saying really is that this recipe requires some planning and forethought. If you can muster that up, this soup is totally worth the effort and you will be so pleased with yourself as soon as you taste that first spoonful.

This recipe comes from my good friend Tommy; that would be Thomas Keller to you all. Okay, he’s not really my friend, but this is my blog and that means that I can type anything I want and pass it off as truth. So, in imafoodblog land Tommy Keller is our friend.

I have owned the Bouchon cookbook by Thomas Keller for quite a while but Nick and I have only cooked one or two recipes from it. His recipes are not very figure friendly so I don’t have too many occasions to use the book. And when I volunteered to host Recipes to Rival for October, I did not have a particular recipe in mind. Though I had been thinking about making some real French onion soup for a few weeks, and that seemed like a perfect fall weather R2R challenge.

Bouchon and the accompanying Bouchon Cookbook features French bistro food. I don’t think you can get more French bistro than onion soup, and I know that Thomas Keller does not do anything half-assed. So I figured his recipe for onion soup would be delicious and authentic, which is exactly what I wanted to accomplish with my first attempt at this soup.

I made this soup twice. The first attempt came out wonderfully. However, I knew I could do better. The first time I made this I did not read ahead enough to see that Keller calls for homemade beef stock in his recipe and pretty much says that he would rather you use water than substitute canned stock for the homemade stuff. I was worried if I used only water the broth would not be rich enough, so I met Tommy halfway and used half water and half store bought stock. I think this compromise produced a very good end result, and I would make it this way again for sure.

But I kept thinking about the homemade beef stock. I had never made my own before, we have made plenty of chicken stock in our little kitchen, but never beef stock. So I decided that I had to make it again and go all out and make Keller’s homemade beef stock as well. I got myself some meaty leg bones from my butcher and made my very first homemade beef stock. It came out great! The aroma that wafted through our apartment as it simmered for 6 hours let me know that canned beef broth should not even be in the same category as the real stuff. The smell was amazing. I definitely won’t make it every time I need beef stock, but I will whenever beef stock will be one of the main flavors in my dish, like this soup!

The second batch of soup with the homemade stock was AMAZING. Right now it is Sunday and I finished the soup today and had a taste so I could write about it. It had a depth of flavor that the first batch lacked. I am “aging” the finished soup in the fridge until Tuesday since Keller says it gets even better if left to sit for a day or so. I did this so I could get the total full effect of what Keller expects this soup to be, and also for scheduling reasons I need a dinner on Tuesday that I can pull together really quickly. I will update the post once I have a full bowl with cheese and all. I know it’s going to be great though! I am excited to eat it.

The recipe for both the beef stock and the onion soup are after the jump, along with some process photos. Take a deep breath and tell yourself it will be worth it in the end, because this is a long one folks. It is truly not complicated, but I am not going to lie and say it’s a cinch to make. It requires some effort, tender love and care, but you will be rewarded in the end.

Read more »

Making your own peanut butter is embarrassingly easy, everyone should be doing it. I saw this one a while back on Joy the Baker, and I bought some honey roasted peanuts shortly thereafter. However, I just never got around to making it.

Then this past weekend I began to make the Craving Ellie in My Belly recipe Noodles with a Lime-Peanut sauce and realized that I had no peanut butter. What I did have was a bag of peanuts - perfect opportunity to make my own.

All I did was put 1 1/2 cups of honey roasted peanuts with an 1/8 teaspoon of salt in a food processor and processed it until smooth. This took a good minute or so, until it formed into a ball.

Not only is this easy, but it is more delicious than any peanut butter I have ever bought in a store. The honey roasted peanuts are amazing, but you could also use some plain roasted peanuts, salted or unsalted and adjust the salt accordingly. I imagine you could also make your own almond or cashew butter by following the same process, I am going try that when I run out of this peanut butter.

So next time you find yourself with a bag of peanuts and a few spare minutes you should make this.

Confused by the title? Me too. Let’s take this one step at a time. Homemade chicken stock and broth is one of most versatile ingredients one will come in contact with in day to day cooking. Not only is it great for a quick batch of soup when somebody has a wittle bewwy ache, but equally good for deglazing pans for sauces, for cooking veggies and rice, and tasty even on its own. Back to the title - why, pray-tell did I name this post “How to Make Homemade Chicken Stock Broth Recipe?” Mostly because I am an attention whore. See, I cleverly named the post so that people searching for “how to make” and “recipe” find a match for both chicken “stock” and “broth.” Pretty sneaky, no? You should see what I do when I flop a nut straight UTG (read: Texas Hold’em). But there is even a more compelling reason, you see…

Read more »

There are very few things that I can do well. If you knew me personally, you’d know I’m not just being modest. Luckily, one of those things happens to be making fresh, homemade, ridiculously delicious, egg noodle pasta. I say so because Sara has quite an affinity for those silky, carbo-stuffed, relationship saving strands of flour and eggs. I have tried MANY, many recipes for egg noodles. A lot of them will tell you to use an extensive amount of fat (egg yolks/oil) in order to achieve a supple final product, worthy of the King’s plate. They also generally require several hours of preparation, rolling, shaping, and drying. Several hours spent drooling over the fresh pasta that’s spread across your counter, dining room table, coffee table, hung from one’s shower curtain, etc. must build quite a high level of anxious desire for dinner. I like to cut all through that BS and just get to the eating. Here is how to do it, on a Tuesday, to perfection, every time.

Read more »

I am by no means an expert on laminated dough. I have failed previously in feeble attempts to make puff pastry and croissants. Sometimes to the extent that I deserved to be beaten repeatedly with soap bound in a bath towel. The reason I say this is because every joe-blow showoff with a food blog inevitably comes to the point of displaying their mad skillz when it comes to laminated dough for the world to see. Without exception they condescendingly tout, “It is really not all that hard,” or, “don’t believe the hype, YOU can do this at home.” Bastards. Well I am here to tell you the truth, imafoodblog.com readers, laminated dough IS slightly less complicated than, say, finding the area under a curve (wow, was that a Calculus joke?), but certainly more so than making your grandma’s marinara sauce. That said, it is within the realm of possibility, if one follows the recipe and instructions and one is willing to fail horrifically more than once to get the moves down.

Read more »

MARZIPAN!!!!!!

After Joe Pastry’s subliminal prodding, I made some almond paste from scratch. Considering how much of the stuff a commercial bakery would go through, I made a very small amount, but I realized that I was only going to need a little bit of it to make the pastry cream to fill my Danish, so I decided to use the rest to make one of Sara’s favorite sweets: Marzipan. Please find the process(es) after the jump.

Read more »

About a week ago I decided that I wanted to make some laminated dough. I have made homemade puff pastry several times previously and decided I wanted to try something different. As my mind often wanders from one idea to another (lets face it, my love for pastries makes it difficult to narrow down the list of things I want to make, not to mention keep me under a bajillion pounds) I generally look elsewhere for inspiration. This time I found it in new friend Libby from attheveryyeast.blogspot.com ’s Prune Danish Braid for the Fearless Beginner. Alright, I’m making Danish.

Read more »

I have said it before on this blog, I love pasta, and I especially love pasta with a simple marinara sauce and some parmigianno cheese. That is major comfort food for me.

When I first started cooking for myself in college, one of the first “dishes” I made was tomato sauce. I tried various recipes and techniques and I remember never being thrilled with the results.

I found this recipe a year or so ago for a very simple marinara sauce by Emeril Lagasse of all people. I am not really an Emeril fan and he certainly does not qualify as an authority on anything Italian in my book. That said, I am glad I tried it, because it is an easy, super simple marinara sauce that I can use in various applications, including as a base for a more complex tomato based sauce.

Read more »

I don’t need to tell you that pesto is a beautiful thing. Theoretically, pesto is wonderful because there are countless combinations of ingredients that you can combine to make it.

This recipe is for sun dried tomato pesto and is based on a recipe I saw in At Home with Magnolia by Allysa Torey (of Magnolia Bakery fame). I have made it a few times now, and it is just really great. The sun dried tomatoes and the toasted almonds give it a thick chunky texture, and the sweetness of the tomatoes with the richness of the almonds, cheese, and olive oil is addictive. There is a bit of spice from the garlic and a fresh undertone from the lemon zest. Unlike your standard (yet delicious, and my favorite) genovese pesto, or probably most pestos for that matter, this will last in the fridge for up to 6 weeks.

As you can see in the picture, we like to eat it spread on some bread. I may also be spotted in the corner of the kitchen using hard sourdough pretzels to scoop it right out of the container. I also like to add it to pasta dishes as a substitute for crushed tomatoes, like for instance, this cavatelli with broccolini and turkey sausage. The point is, this is tasty and you can find many different ways to inhale it.

Read more »