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Huevos Rancheros
Huevos Rancheros
Risotto al Funghi
Risotto al funghi
- 30g dried porcini muchrooms
- 1 small onion, diced
- 1/2 cup white wine (dry)
- 4 cups sushi rice
- 4 cups vegetable stock
Soak the porcini for 30 minutes in one cup of lukewarm water. Drain, reserving the water, and chop coarsely. The mushroom water should be strained using cheesecloth or a paper towel.
Heat 3 or 4 tbsp of olive oil in a skillet and fry the onion under low heat until golden. Add the mushrooms and mingle for two minutes and add a dash of salt.
Next, add in the rice, stir to mix the mushroom/onions, and let sit for a few minutes. Add the wine and stir the rice. Once the wine is absorbed, add the stock a ladle-full at a time. Stir often to ensure that the rice is evenly cooked.
Mango Pineapple Banana Smoothie
1 Mango
1/5 Large pineapple
1/2 Banana
Cut into chunks, add to blender, fill with milk to 1 cup line, blend.
Hummus 2.5
This is the recipe I have been using for a few weeks with great success. It is basically the same as Hummus 2.0, but with some chickpea tweaks.
First, when soaking the chickpeas add about a teaspoon of baking soda to the water; the alkalinity of the sodium bicarbonate will soften the shell of the chickpeas, and the resulting hummus will be much more smooth (i.e. those little chunks that the food processor cannot eliminate will be gone). To make hummus the next day, I usually begin soaking the chickpeas before bed and change the water when I wake up.
Next, boil the soaked chickpeas for several hours and make sure to reserve the water when draining. Allow the chickpeas to cool, and before adding to the processor set aside about 10 or 15 chickpeas for the topping.
- 1/2 lb dry chickpeas (1lb after soaking/boiling)
- 2/3 cup tahini
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- ~1 tbsp cumin
- ~1 tbsp chili powder
Place the chickpeas, oil, lemon juice, cumin, chili powder, and salt in a food processor. Crush the garlic in a press, add to processor, and blend. Add in some of the reserved water while blending until the mixture slightly thicker than ketchup – I usually add about half a cup. Next, blend in the tahini. The mixture should now be quite thick again. Add reserved water until the desired consistency is reached.
To serve, place about half the hummus in a shallow bowl and make a slight depression in the center. Pour in a tablespoon or so of olive oil, then dust with cumin and chili powder. Add the reserved chickpeas to the oil.
I have also been experimenting with adding a bit of ground beef on top; it adds some nice flavor.
Honeydew smoothie
Since there are several fruit stands near my apartment, why not make some fruit smoothies?
- 1/4 Honeydew melon, cut into cubes and frozen
- 1 large banana or 1.5 medium ones
- 2 teaspoons of honey
- Whole milk
Add the ingredients to the blender and fill milk to the 1 cup line. Blend. Awesome.
Grilled stuffed calamari
At the Rittenhouse farmer’s market this saturday, a fishmonger had some nice fresh calamari. I bought four bodies, planning to use my new indoor grill to cook the little guys. Some googling led to this recipe (skip down about 1/2 page) for calamari stuffed with fennel, bell pepper, scallions, and gouda. I also made the latholemono from that page, a dressing of oil, lemon juice, mustard, and parsley. I ended up only using about half of the pepper and was still left with a large amount of left-over stuffing, so I stuffed and grilled the half-pepper too. The results were fantastic:
Cheese-stuffed goodness
We got some mini peppers from the farmers market, so I decided to make some stuffed peppers. I wanted to use goat cheese, and some googling turned up this recipe for cherry and goat cheese stuffed peppers. I just cleaned and removed the tops from the peppers, mixed goat cheese and cherry preserves, topped it with bacon, and baked it for a ~45 minutes.
- About 7-8 peppers, about the size of racquetballs
- A 4-5 oz package of soft goat cheese (without herbs)
- A jar of cherry preserves (in the jam/jelly aisle)
- 4 slices of thick bacon, cut in half lengthwise
Since I only used about half of the bacon I bought I wanted to do some bacon-wrapped figs, à la Tinto. Unfortunately my local market didn’t have figs, so I bought some Medjool dates. To pit the dates, simply slice along the long side, end to end, and pull out the pit. The long cut doesn’t matter, since they’ll be wrapped in delicious bacon anyway. Once the pits were out, I filled the inside with crème fraiche and slivered almonds. I saw a recipe suggesting roasted whole almonds, but slivered was all I had. Finally, I wrapped the dates in bacon (one-third of a strip, cut crosswise), secured it with a toothpick, and baked them on a baking sheet for about 10-15 minutes.
- 6 slices of bacon, cut into 18 pieces
- 4oz crème fraiche
- Slivered almonds, about 20 almonds worth
- 18 Medjool dates
Paella
Hummus 2.0
The next iteration of the hummus recipe.
Boil about half a pound of dried chickpeas for several hours after soaking them overnight, reserving the water when draining. Set aside about 10 or 15 chickpeas for the topping.
- 1/2 lb dry chickpeas (1lb after soaking/boiling)
- 2/3 cup tahini
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- ~1 tbsp cumin
- ~1 tbsp chili powder
Place the chickpeas, oil, lemon juice, cumin, chili powder, and salt in a food processor. Crush the garlic in a press, add to processor, and blend. Add in some of the reserved water while blending until the mixture slightly thicker than ketchup. Blend in the tahini. The mixture should now be quite thick again. Add reserved water until the desired consistency is reached. Add cumin and chili powder to taste.
Idea for next time: add garlic to the chickpeas while boiling.