Homemade Hummus is... Yummus!

William and I love hummus! I, however, hate how expensive it is so I decided to make my own... It is surprisingly simple and very very tasty!

You'll need a blender - I guess a food processor would do the trick, but I never claimed to be a culinary genius.

Ingredients:

1 19 oz. can of garbanzos (drained, liquid reserved)
1 clove of crushed/chopped (whatever) garlic. Confession: I used 1 tbsp of the stuff in a jar.
4 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp tahini (some will tell you it is ok to use peanut butter - others think this is horrifying - I can't risk it, so I found tahini in our local grocery store in the olive section)

Stick all of this in your blender. Stop and start like 100 times to keep scraping all the stuff in to where the blades can do their work. If it is too dry, add some of the reserved liquid from the garbanzos - you DID remember to drain - didn't you?? I used maybe half of the liquid or a little less - I don't like my hummus too runny.

This is not expensive - at all. The tahini is a little pricey but I estimate that I have enough to make hummus for quite some time... Try it... you'll like it!

Sweet Snack Mix

OK - I wanted to try to make my own snack mix. This post serves to explain why being a novice chef and having poor perceptual skills is a dangerous combination. I set out to buy ingredients - so of course I went to BJ's. I came home feeling very satisfied and went to work. Now - I don't know how to tell you how much of everything I used. I had bought an aluminum roasting pan (because I do not have one at all - I told you N-O-V-I-C-E) and just filled it up with a nice mixture of Cheerios, Chex, peanuts, and pretzels.



I decided that that was a lot - so I doubled this recipe for the sauce:

3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup dark corn syrup
1-1/2 cups light brown sugar

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the ingredients.



In the meantime, you should preheat the oven to 250 degrees F. Then you take this sticky syrupy mix and pour it evenly over the aforementioned mixture of crunchy snacks and mix thoroughly.



Then you put in the oven for an hour - stirring very 15 minutes. Later - cool on wax paper and store in airtight containers. This made a LOT of stuff - A whole lot!! Be forewarned... this stuff is really sweet. But seriously, it is like sweet sticky crack. You just can not stop eating it.

To that end I will not be making this again - not for personal use. Maybe for a class party (CHECK for peanut allergies first if you do this...)

Help! Potato pancakes masquerading as potato blobs...

Someone - anyone - tell me please the secret to making potato pancakes that somewhat resemble something other than an amorphous blob! Please - I am groveling!

OOEY-GOOEY Crumbly-n-Chewy Granola Bars

I got annoyed with how much granola bars cost - AND we are trying to reduce waste so the less "packaging" we purchase the happier I am.

I decided to try making our own granola bars. I found a recipe on allrecipes.com but had to modify it to suit us... William has the job of cutting up the sticks of butter and melting them. Also he like to help mix and pour ingredients... here is the result:



INGREDIENTS
4-1/2 cups rolled oats
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

1) Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly grease one 9 x 13 inch pan.
2) In a large mixing bowl combine the oats, flour, baking soda, vanilla, melted butter, honey and brown sugar. Stir in the chocolate chips (or whatever else you want to use instead).
3) Press mixture firmly into the prepared pan. Bake for 18-22 minutes (we convect bake for 20) or until golden brown. Let Cool for 15 minutes, then cut with pizza cutter. WAIT for bars to cool completely before removing or serving!!

Makes 24 bars...

Baked Grapefruit

So - I found these monstrous grapefruits... and HAD to have them.





I got them home and went "Ok, Genius - what are you going to DO with them??" I went on-line to find some interesting ideas... and this is the first one I found that sounded interesting to me...

Baked Grapefruit

Other than grapefruit, you need honey and cinnamon...

DIRECTIONS:
1. Cut each grapefruit in half. With a sharp knife, cut around each section
to loosen fruit. Place cut side up in a baking pan.
2. Drizzle each half with 1 teaspoon honey; sprinkle with cinnamon. Broil
4 in. from heat for 2-3 minutes or until bubbly. Serve warm.




A little help from my assistant...


YUM!


In the end, we figured that smaller grapefruits in this case might yield better results...

Coming Soon

I had this idea - that I need some help sharing recipes with friends - this might work... Stay tuned to see what comes of it!