I know, it sounds awful, doesn’t it? I’ve been seeing and hearing of chocolate hummus for awhile, including at Trader Joe’s. I couldn’t bring myself to buy it. But I thought I’d make a very small batch to see what it was all about. I figured that with enough tahini in it, it would be similar to halvah.
Like I said above, I preferred the finished version without chocolate and without vanilla. I don’t think of it as “dessert” hummus, but I really don’t know what I’d use it for, other than on toast. At any rate, I used garbanzo beans, tahini, maple syrup, a bit of salt, and water to thin it a little. It was definitely better than it sounds.
Not the freezer, but the back of the odds and ends drawer.
At Christmas my husband received a corporate gift of pasta with a spice mixture. You’re supposed to mix a spoonful of the spice mixture to water, olive oil and tomato puree. I stuck it in a drawer and sort of forgot about it.
Not so bad. However, I think there’s about 10 meals worth, so if we have it once a week, that’ll last us until end of May. Should take care of some of the dried pasta I have sitting around.
Last night was shrimp cocktail, crab cakes, and air fryer French fries. The shrimp came from a five pound bag in the freezer, purchased for last xmas but never used.
Last Wednesday I made Spicy Beef Rendang, an Indonesian stew that is a favorite in our house (even the kids like it) but it’s normally weekend-only, since it needs to be slow-cooked for about 4 hours, and carefully stirred every 20 minutes or so. I had a big chunk of chuck roast I was defrosting, I found two last cans of coconut milk in the back of the pantry, and most of the proper spices.
I was doing a text thread with my sisters, and sent them the recipe. They said “lemongrass stalks? Lime leaves? I don’t have anything like that during normal times”. I said I had to use dried lemongrass, and substitute the juice of a slightly aging lime in my fridge for the lime leaves. Which led to them making fun of how I’m persevering through such hardships as resorting to dried lemongrass, the horrors.
…which led to me saying “hey, that gives me an idea for a new website, ‘Fine Dining During the Apocalypse’-- ‘Some say raccoon is the best substitute for beef, but personally I prefer squirrel for this dish’.”
Anyway here is the Rendang recipe I go by if anyone is interested. As mentioned, it takes time but is totally worth the wait, if you like this type of spicy food, and can scrounge up the ingredients. I alter the recipe a little from this- I add slivered almonds because the restaurant where my wife and I discovered Rendang had almonds in it, and I add a splash of soy sauce and/or fish sauce for umami:
Mmmmmm. Rendang is practically the national dish of Indonesia - everyone loves it. I haven’t tried the version solost linked to but it seems about right. Good choice for shelter-in-place cooking.
Last night I made something I was extremely doubtful about (I just wanted to use up some ingredients before they died) and whaddaya know, it was delicious. I thawed some frozen extra-firm tofu, cut it into chunks, and marinated it in - are you ready for this - olive juice, tabasco, and a splash of soy. I sautéed the tofu briefly in olive oil after it had marinated a couple of hours.
Then I caramelized some onions, stirred in shredded fresh cabbage until it wilted, and added the tofu cubes. I didn’t add any other vegetables because I was afraid it might be terrible and didn’t want to waste any of my good stuff.
My original plan had been to put it into spring roll wrappers but I wanted to eat while it was still hot and that seemed weird, so I used flour tortilla wrappers instead. I’ll use it for spring rolls tonight now that it the leftovers are in the fridge.
Lo and beyond, it was incredibly delicious. I had to stop myself from gobbling it all up and making myself sick from overeating! The tofu cubes were little flavor bombs of salty-spicy-sour, the cabbage was just the right texture of cooked-but-crunchy, and the onions rounded out the flavors, with the wrapper adding a bit of carb satisfaction.
Not sure it will be quite as wonderful in a spring roll wrapper but tonight I’ll find out. I wonder if it will need a dipping sauce?
We have lemongrass growing in a pot in our sun room. People look at it and wonder wtf it is. We had a kaffir lime tree for 5 years or so then one day it just up and died.
Sauerkraut and potato pancakes with applesauce and Toffuti sour cream (half a container of leftover sauerkraut, old potatoes, applesauce with an upcoming expiration date).
Romas and tofu defrosting; tomatoes, broth, and rice frozen for later.
:eek: Details on your failed fries? Mine are truly the best fries ever. I cut a potato into “steak fry” sized pieces. Then I soak them in water for 30 minutes or so. I lay them out on a towel to air dry, then toss them with just a bit of oil, salt, pepper. Airfry as recommended (my fryer has a frenchfry menu setting) tossing every 4 minutes. I also like to put some onion slices in with the potatoes.
We don’t really do tater tots any longer, but we adore broccoli or cauliflower tots, can’t remember the brand, but they also have a really good broccoli and cheese tot.
Sort of how my family cabbage soup recipe commentary - made it with everything from squirrel, rabbit, deer, cow, pig, fowl and salmon, and I really wouldn’t reccomend salmon =)
Hm. Squirrel is in the ‘tastes like chicken’ class of meats - possum, squirrel, rabbit, raccoon, snake and some reptiles [frogs taste like fishhy chicken with a rubbery texture, sort of the same as gator but snake sort of has that texture without the fishy] Though fowl all tastes similar, you can compare/contrast light meat/dark meat chicken. Some is also leaner and some richer - pheasant is dark meat lean, duck is dark meat rich/oily.
Beef analogy is more ostrich/buffalo/beef/deer … I personally would lump horse in, but Americans have a bias against eating horse [shame, rich less fatty than beef, quite nice actually.]
