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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:

Well, nowhere really.

My head just has not really been in food blog land as of late.

I have been spending a lot of free time at the gym. Nick, who used to have to harass me about getting off my butt and going to the gym, actually said to me last night that it was annoying how much time I spend there and that I need to go less! I will take that under advisement honey.

I have also been enjoying some free time shopping. I have apparently decided to singlehandedly stimulate our economy by spending all my money on clothing and shoes.

We have also had some exciting news from our family and friends recently:

One of our closest friends Dianna just got engaged to her adorable Italian boyfriend while on a trip in Italy. I couldn’t be more excited for her and for their wedding, which will most likely be in Italy!! Yay!

Nick and I also learned that we will soon become an Aunt and Uncle, so we are definitely excited about that as well. However, I don’t think that a new baby will help curb my shopping addiciton

And of course, I have been cooking. I have actually made the last 3 Craving Ellie in My Belly recipes, but just did not have the energy to take a decent picture and write a post. I feel like a bit of a slacker, so here is my attempt at redemption:

Chicken Chop Suey - this was a great choice by our one and only Healthy Hostess, Ali. I did think that the flavor of this was very similar to a lot of Ellie’s other Asian inspired recipes, but it was definitely tasty and filling. I loved the crispy baked wontons!

Tuscan Vegetable Soup - I can’t rave enough about this soup and I have to thank Pam of Lobster and Fishsticks for choosing it. It is so hearty and filled with yummy veggies. I loved that the broth has just a hint of redness from the tomatoes, and I also simmered mine with a parmigianno rind which gave it tons of flavor. I always keep my leftover cheese rinds in the fridge for things like this. I made this on Saturday night after it had literally been raining in DC nonstop for days, and it was so perfect.

And this week’s pick was Chicken & Mushroom Quesadilla and was chosen by Marthe of Culinary Delights. I have actually made these before, and they were really good. So this time I changed it up a bit, mainly to use up some stuff I already had in the fridge/freezer. I stuffed them with some leftover roasted veggies that I had on hand from roasted veggie lasagna I made the night before. I sauteed up some extra mushrooms to add to that, and I added some cooked shredded turkey to Nick’s that I had in the freezer. Topped with a generous helping of reduced fat colby/jack cheese mix, these were sooooo good, and easy. Although, I had a good laugh at Ellie’s suggested serving size of a half a quesadilla! Nick and I both had our own whole one, and it was a perfect dinner portion for me.

I also made the Allspice Crumb Muffins, which was a Tuesdays with Dorie pick a week or so ago. This was chosen by one of my Craving Ellie girls, Kayte of Grandma’s Kitchen Table. I was so happy that she chose these because I have been eyeing them for quite a while. And I will pretty much try any muffin recipe under the sun. These got two thumbs up from me. I made some with and some without the buttery crumble topping, and both versions were delicious. I loved the surprising flavor of the allspice, this was a nice change up for me as far as muffins go. Great pick Kayte!

I am really going to try to get back into posting and reading all your blogs regularly, since it is something that I truly enjoy doing!

Later.

*I just wanted to first give a big internet hug to all of you who left me such understanding and spirit lifting comments last week. You all made me smile and it also made me appreciate this blog as an outlet and appreciate all the bloggy friends that I have made since we started this in January. So thanks, it helped. . *

I was excited for this week’s Craving Ellie in My Belly pick. I have had my eye on this one for a while. Leslie of Lethally Delicious came through with a fabulous recipe pick of Sweet and Spicy Grilled Cheese Sandwiches. How could you not be excited for a grilled cheese sandwich?

Ellie jazzes up the ho hum grilled cheese by adding sweet caramelized onions and spicy pepperjack cheese, as well as some cheddar cheese and a slice of tomato. (We left out the tomato, yuck)

However, I did make some homemade tomato soup to pair with this cheesy goodness. Yes, I know. We are weirdos. We would never eat our sandwiches with a slice of tomato, but insist on eating our sandwiches with a bowl of tomato soup. Sue me.

I used some thinly sliced rye bread that I had in the freezer (getting ready for my recipe pick next week!) which worked out great. I also happened to be caramelizing onions for some French onion soup for another day when I made these sandwiches. So instead of using the red onion I just borrowed a couple forkfuls from my pot of already sweet and soft onions. I used slices of sharp cheddar and pepperjack, as Ellie calls for. Since I was not in a particularly healthful cooking mood on this day, I really piled on the cheese. It was oozing out of the center after I cut the sandwiches.

These. were. so. good. I don’t know how healthy they really are since we are using full fat cheese here, but no matter. They were good.

You can find the recipe for the grilled cheese on page 95 of The Food You Crave or at the Food Network website.

Now let’s talk about tomato soup. This is something I rarely make, especially since I am just not interested in canned soup anymore. To find a recipe I consulted my cookbooks first since I wanted to give them some action, there are some that are feeling unloved these days. I decided to try out a healthy recipe I found in EatingWell’s Comfort Foods Made Healthy: The Classic Makeovers Cookbook by Jessie Price, The Editors of EatingWell

This book has some great sounding recipes, but this was the first one I have tried. I was hesitant at first, since any recipe with the word tofu in it gives me pause. However, I recently made a dip that was thickened by silken tofu and was pleased with the results. So I decided to have some faith and try this out.

While we were grocery shopping as we approached the tofu area I said to Nick “Okay honey get ready, I am about to buy some tofu". I got this response: . It’s a big deal for us.

Long story short, the soup came out excellent. It was wonderfully thick and creamy and I would absolutely make it again. And the best part is that it really is low fat and healthy for you. It was the perfect accompaniment to the grilled cheese.

Ingenious creamy tomato soup recipe after the jump…

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This week’s Craving Ellie in My Belly is stuffed turkey burgers, chosen by the lovely Peggy of Pantry Revisited. These were good, not my favorite, but they were good. Lean ground turkey is stuffed with mozzarella cheese, roasted red peppers, and I added jalapenos as well. To stuff them, you create 8 small patties, flatten them, place your stuffing on top of one, and then top it with another patty and pinch the edges closed. This is pretty easy as long as you don’t over stuff the burgers.

I don’t really like to make turkey burgers because I am always worried that they will not be cooked through, and then I end up over cooking them and that’s gross. I also find that ground turkey gets so dry, so to combat that I used half ground turkey breast and half ground thigh meat. This gave the burger a nice flavor and helped it from totally drying out while my neurosis over cooked these burgers.

The recipe is pretty simple and Ellie barely calls for any seasoning of the meat. Just some salt and pepper once the patties are formed. I luv ya Ellie, but come one, this turkey needs some flavor. It just so happened that the night I made these, Nick came home with a package of Emeril products from FoodBuzz. So I added some of Emeril’s original essence into the meat as well as some Worcestershire sauce. I am not really into Emeril, but I enjoyed his essence, which is just salt, paprika, black pepper, granulated garlic, spices (hmmm?), and onion powder. We also topped our burgers with some of Emeril’s kicked up horseradish mustard. Thanks Emeril and FoodBuzz!

So, we have eaten these burgers twice. I made a full recipe of 4 burgers and froze 2 of them for another night. When I made the second set of burgers, I flattened them so that they would cook quicker and then I served them on some flat naan bread that I had in the house. I also topped each burger with a slice of Monterey Jack cheese. This was really good, and I liked the burgers better served this way versus a regular thick fat burger on a roll. (I like my big thick burgers to be made of fattening juicy red meat) I really enjoyed the bites with the roasted red pepper. I think if I make these again, I would chop up the red pepper into small pieces and mix it into the meat instead of stuffing them. We ate this with a simple salad and some baked potato chips. This was a great and super easy dinner. Thanks for a great pick Peggy!

We are so not vegetarians at imafoodblog. I love meat and could not imagine a life without it. That said, sometimes I just don’t feel like meat. Sometimes I want something fresh and light and meatless.

Oh vegetarians, don’t get too excited. This only lasts for a meal or two, then I go back to my animal eating instincts.

So I got this urge a week or so ago after seeing a post by one of our very first blogger friends, Sippity Sup. He was doing a week of burgers, and when I read this I thought to myself, “wow, he is going to be eating a lot of meat". But true to his ingenious form, he comes out with a delicious looking and sounding vegetarian burger that piqued my interest right away. Our picture doesn’t do this burger justice, but his does (of course), so check out his post to get your mouth watering for this.

His burger was a slow roasted portobello mushroom, smothered in mozzarella cheese, topped with roasted red peppers, kalamata olives, tomatoes, and basil, on a good quality Kaiser roll.

I made a few slight changes based on our preferences, and I also served these on some freshly baked homemade sandwich rolls. Perfection!

My slightly adapted recipe is after the jump. Whether you make it Greg’s way or my way - or your own way - you should pencil this in for a lunch or dinner very soon.

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This week MacDuff of Lonely Sidecar chose the Craving Ellie in My Belly recipe, and her pick was a Lobster Roll. Yum! To me, nothing says summertime like some great seafood, or to be more specific, shellfish.

I am a shellfish addict - shrimp, lobster, mussels, and my favorite littleneck clams. I will eat it all in almost any form you can think of to prepare it.

So I was excited to try this recipe out. I originally planned to make it with some lobster that Nick’s sister and brother in-law were bringing down from Rhode Island over 4th of July. However, I forgot. So I ended up making it earlier this week with some jumbo shrimp.

The recipe really is the dressing which consists of mayo, greek yogurt, celery, scallion, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. It was pretty good. I ended up using only a little bit of the dressing on my sandwich, but Nick put a bunch more on his and really enjoyed it. It was a tad bit bland, which some members mentioned on the Tell All, so I added more salt and some celery salt to this mixture. The dressing kind of reminded me of coleslaw dressing, and there was already celery in it, so it seemed natural. MacDuff also suggested using Old Bay on the Tell All, which I totally should have thought of, but I had already made them.

I don’t really know much about what an authentic lobster or shrimp roll is supposed to be, so I don’t know how this compares. Though I can imagine that those sandwiches have mayo and maybe sour cream on them. I also did not serve these on a hot dog roll because I had some baguettes in the house, so I am sure that made a difference texture wise.

This wasn’t one of my favorite Ellie recipes, but it was still an enjoyable dinner. What I liked even more though, was this Rice and Lentil Salad that I made courtesy of Giada DeLaurentiis. The salad was fantastic! You should try it out.

I don’t think I need to wax poetic about the benefits of fresh homemade sandwich rolls, so I won’t. I’ll just say that a fresh roll can turn a good sandwich into a great sandwich, which you already know.

I made these rolls for pulled BBQ chicken sandwiches, and they were totally awesome. I found the recipe at King Arthur Flour. I did not change any of the ingredients, however, I did not follow KAF’s instructions for mixing the dough. KAF basically says to mix all the ingredients together until you have a soft smooth dough. I am not a very experienced bread maker, so I thought these directions were a bit too vague. Nick helped me make this and he broke the mixing process down somewhat. The recipe and our detailed mixing process after the jump.

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I was not introduced to real barbecue until a few short years ago. I think the first true pork bbq sandwich I ever had was on my first trip the the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Truth be told, I was not that impressed. I think it was the ridonculously vinegary sauce. I love a sweet and tangy BBQ sauce, but whatever I had was not enough sweet and too much tang.

Anyway, last year, Nick decided that it would be a good idea to build a smoker. Needless to say, we had many months of great summer BBQ’s with a variety of smoked foods, including multiple pork butts. So this is what really ignited and cemented my love of smoked food and true barbecue.

Unfortunately, pork butt is not a lean cut of meat. In fact, part of the reason why the pulled pork is so good is because slow cooking it upwards of 10 hours allows all the fat to melt into the meat, making it extra tender and flavorful. So when I saw Ellie Krieger make some delicious looking pulled BBQ chicken sandwiches I knew I had give them a try. Could I satiate my cravings for good barbecue in a healthy way. Barbecue purists would say no, but I say yes.

Ellie uses a store bought rotisserie chicken and a quick homemade barbecue sauce. I added some homemade coleslaw to them and served them on some homemade rolls. This was unbelievably good. They can’t compete with a real pulled pork sandwich, but they are a great easy weeknight healthy alternative. I will be making these again and again.

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This week’s Craving Ellie in my Belly was Turkey Meatballs with a Quick and Spicy Tomato Sauce. It was a wonderful choice by Amanda of Oddball Oven Mitt.

I have made these turkey meatballs many many times, they are a family favorite. In fact, I have even posted about them on this blog before, you can find the post here. I go into more detail about how I prepare them in my previous post. What you need to know about these meatballs is that they are delicious and full of flavor, and you cook them in the broiler so they get all crispy, almost like they are fried. (I said almost!) If you are expecting some full fat fried pork and beef meatballs, you will be disappointed. However, for a healthy alternative made with something as dry as ground turkey, these don’t disappoint.

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This is just a quick lunch that I put together for myself on a day off from work, and it turned out delicious. I also think this would be a great hors d’oeurve or appetizer to serve at a party.

I had some flour tortillas leftover in the fridge, so I topped it with some part skim mozzarella, roasted red peppers, and prosciutto, and baked it for a few minutes.

Of course, you can do any combination you want. I think this is a great way to do a bit of fridge/pantry clean out or you can fancy it up for a party.

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