Yummus Tacos y Taquitos

As you may remember from my Yummus post, I had a large amount of it left over from the New Year Eve party. Remembering what a friend of mine had said when I had first introduced him to hummus, "Oh, it's like a bean dip!" I decided to make tacos from the remaining hummus.

The Yummus recipe was:

• 1/4 garbanzo bean flour
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup tahini
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds
• 1/4-1/3 cup olive oil
• 2 TBS lemon juice
• 2-3 garlic cloves
• 2 TBS lemon grass
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 3/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp ground pepper

To this I added a packet of taco seasoning. The mix should be just thin enough to spread - not too thin!



Bake at about 350F for about 10 minutes (5-7 minutes if using a toaster oven). If you want a more pliable taco, bake at a lower temp for less time.



I also made taquitos since I had kids in the house that day and didn't want taco toppings all over the living room while they were playing video games. I just cut the taquitos into bite sized pieces. Some have cheese in them, some don't. The kids cleaned two plates of these!



The tacos I topped with a mix of my home-made salsa, sour cream, and avocados with some romaine lettuce thrown on top.


OMG!! It was SO GOOD!! I would buy this at a restaurant.

Yummus

For the New Year party I also made hummus for the first time. I started with the recipe from the Red Mill bag of garbanzo bean flour. [This post is mostly the making of the recipe. If you just want the finished recipe go here]

3/4 cup garbanzo bean flour
2-1/2 cup water
2-3 garlic cloves
1/4 cup chicken broth (I skipped this)
1/4 cup sesame paste (I didn't have this, so I mashed 1/4 sesame seeds with a chop/blender)
1/4 cup lemon juice (I didn't have this so I added 2 TBS lemon grass instead)
1/8 tsp tabasco sauce (I substituted powdered cayenne pepper because I like it)
1/2 tsp ground cumin (I totally missed this - you'll see this come up later)
salt & pepper to taste (1/2 tsp sea salt and 1/4 tsp ground pepper)
1/4 cup olive oil

Which gave me this:
A hummus paste, or more accurately, lump. I wasn't sure that it was going to even work, and was short on time, so I abandoned it to the fridge until later. After all other appetizers were done, I did have time to work with it, and I had picked up tahini and lemon juice as well.

I spooned out about 1 cup of the lump and added 1 cup tahini, 1/4 cup water, and 2 TBS lemon juice and mixed until smooth. It is MUCH easier to get a smooth mix if you just mix the lump and the tahini together first, then add the water.
The flavor still was not right, so I added 1/4 tsp sea salt, mixed and tasted. Still not right. So I added 1/4 tsp more cayenne pepper and 2 more TBS olive oil. Good, but still not right. It needed some depth. It could use some more garlic, but I was going for at least one dish that wasn't garlicky.

SSB asked me if we had any Middle Eastern spices. I added 1/2 tsp paprika. Better, not quite there. There was a taste in my mind... what is it? CUMIN! It really needed cumin! So I added 1/4 tsp cumin, tasted and added 1/4 more. Perfect! Then I looked at the original recipe and noticed that it actually had cumin in the ingredient list and I had just missed it. Silly me!

Here is the final result. The little dish to the right is my trial dish that I used to try out a few variations before I made the changes to the main mix.

My final recipe for a batch was probably close to this:

• 1/4 garbanzo bean flour
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup tahini
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds
• 1/4-1/3 cup olive oil
• 2 TBS lemon juice
• 2-3 garlic cloves
• 2 TBS lemon grass
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 3/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp ground pepper

Put everything into a mixing bowl and blend using a chopping/blending handmixer until smooth. If it is too thick, add a little more liquid (lemon juice if you like a snappier hummus, olive oil if you like a super smooth hummus, or just water if all is good and you just need it so you can get a chip into it!). And of course, all spices are adjustable to taste. If you are not serving immediately, you should bring to room temperature before serving. This is great with flatbread chips/crackers, rice chips, or tortilla chips.

If you want a garlicky hummus, just add more garlic!

It was delicious! And I got lots of compliments at the party for it not only being really rich, but amazingly smooth! And I had so much of the original lump left over that I made it up for work as well, and it was a hit there too! I also had enough of the lump left to make another yummy goody that I will post about later.

Spinach Pesto Quiche

There was a sale on eggs and I suddenly had the flavor of fluffy eggs, bacon and basil with a light, buttery pastry in my mouth.

QUICHE!!

I have only made quiche once; and although it wasn't terrible, it wasn't the best.
But this time, it was AWESOME!!!

The Pastry
Start with the pastry. It is very important that the butter be cold and that you do not over mix. The thing that makes the pastry flaky is the tiny bits of un-mixed butter melting and expanding, leaving air pockets.

• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 stick COLD butter
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tbs ICE COLD water
  

Mix the salt and flour well. Cut the butter into the flour until just crumbly. Whisk the egg yolk and water and mix lightly into the flour mix. DO NOT OVER-MIX! Just mix it until everything is incorporated. Some recipes will have you roll it out at this point, but then you risk over-working the dough. I just pushed it into the bottom of the pan in which I was baking the quiche until it was evenly distributed across the bottom and sides.

Bake it slightly at 425F before putting in the filling.

The Filling

• 4 eggs
• 2 cups light cream (the only cream that I had was half-and-half singles - the kind that you use for coffee. 48 of them equals 2 cups :)
  
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup cheese (usually, you would use Swiss - for this I used my four Italian cheese mix)
• 2-3 tablespoons minced sweet onion
• 1-2 tablespoon minced garlic
  
• 1 cup chopped, raw spinach (I probably used more than this)
  
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil (and I probably used more than this too)
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 1/4-1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
  
• Pinch of cayenne pepper
  

Saute the onion, garlic and pine nuts. Whip the eggs and cream. Mix in all other ingredients, as well as the sauteed ingredients. Pour into the lightly browned pastry crust and bake in a 425F oven for 15 minutes. Lower the heat to 350F and bake for another 30 - 45 minutes until a knife comes out clean.

This was even great as left overs!

Creamy Italian Chicken Soup

This is another of my invented recipes. Despite the name, this has no dairy in it. The creaminess comes from throwing the broth into a blender.

• 1lb boneless, skinless chicken breast, cubed
• 32oz stewed tomatoes
• 1/16 cup Italian seasoning
• 1 tsp basil
• 1 tsp oregano
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 tsp sea salt
• dusting of cayenne pepper
• 1 sweet onion, chopped and carmelized
• 4 carrots, chopped

Put everything but the carrots in a crock pot and cook on high for about an hour.

Separate the chicken from the broth. Place the broth, chunks and all, into a blender and "liquify" for a minute or so until smooth.

Throw everything back into the crock pot with carrots.

Let this cook on low for another few hours.

When we got home and were hungry cause it smelled SOOO GOOD!! Although the picture doesn't show it, I did cook up some egg noodles to add shortly before serving. This soup was a big hit with my family. My son ate almost all of it!

Grilled Salmon

• Salmon fillet
• Sea salt
• Pepper
• Red wine (cabernet shiraz),
• Sprinkling of cayenne pepper

While the grill is heating up, pour the wine over the fish and sprinkle the salt and peppers on the fish. Let set until grill is hot.


I have never grilled fish before, and I thought that the fish would get flaky and fall through the grill. So initially I had covered the grill in tinfoil. That didn't seem to work well for flipping the fish, so I tore it off. And you know what? The fish never stuck or started to fall apart - it was beautiful.

I grilled them on both sides until the fish was opaque all the way through. I think it was less than twenty, maybe less than fifteen, minutes total grilling time.

They were delicious! I had a small piece and my husband had a piece, and my son ate this whole plateful that you see here in the picture. He said it was the best fish that he had ever eaten. I would make this again.

Mixed Veggie Pakoras

Mmmm... Indian food! Most Americans have made some Italian food, Mexican dishes, and possibly even tackled a French or Chinese dish or too - even if they were highly Americanized. But I don't know too many people that have tried Indian food, let alone tried to make it themselves.

So, when I got my new favorite cookbook, probably my favorite recipe book of all-time, I marked the pakoras on my list of recipes to try.

I made them last week, and as usual, I didn't have all the right ingredients, so I improvised. Maybe that is a talent.

Here's the recipe as is in the book:

• 6 TBS gram(besan) flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1-1/2 tsp white cumin seeds
• 1 tsp pomegranate seeds
• 1-1/4 cups water
• 1 TBS finely chopped cilantro
• your choice of vegetables
• vegetable oil for frying
  

Well, I thought I had besan (gram flour), which is a flour made from chickpeas/garbanzo beans; but alas, I did not. SO, I took some dried chickpeas and ground them into a powder with my blender. Only realizing afterwards that taking canned chickpeas and grinding them up would have been much easier! Oh well, NEXT TIME!

First you add everything but the cilantro and vegetables. Using a grinding mixer (I used a hand mixer), blend until smooth. Instead of white cumin seeds, I used cheap-brand cumin and PLENTY of it! 1-1/2 tsp my ass! I used cayenne pepper for the chili. You can use any kind of chili pepper you want. Some pepper may be too distinct for this dish, but off hand none come to mind - so just use what you want. I also threw in extra gram and some regular flour because the batter was so soupy. I figured that the batter should have the consistency of onion ring batter.

I also threw in extra pomegranate seeds. This is my first run in with a pomegranate. Interesting fruit. I will have to find more uses for it. But it is SO expensive! I figured since I had gone through so much trouble getting the sucker open and really didn't know what else I would use it for, I should throw extra seeds into this recipe. I think I used about 3-4 TBS.

Once the batter is the way that you would like it, mix in the chopped cilantro. Once again, I threw in extra because I LOVE cilantro!!

Start heating a few inches of oil in a heavy pan. The pakoras should be able to float. Or if you have a deep fryer you can use that too. I used peanut oil.

Once the oil is hot enough to fry, mix the vegetables of your choice into the batter. I would suggest using fresh vegetables. I used frozen mixed veggies with the beans, peas, corn, Lima beans, and carrots - but we all agreed that even though the pakoras were very good, they would have been great if I had used fresh veggies.

Cauliflower is a good one to use for this. I also chopped up potatoes and added this to the frozen mix veggies. That was really good. Just use what you like. I do have to say that this batter makes Lima beans delicious (well, probably as delicious as Lima beans can get anyway).

Using a slotted spoon, spoon the veggies out of the batter and into the hot oil. Be careful the oil isn't too hot or the batter will burn and the veggies won't cook. Turn the pakoras once they appear to have browned nicely on the underside. Fry the other side until it is also deep brown.

Using another slotted spoon, take the pakoras out of the oil and place onto a plate lined with a paper towel to drain the excess oils.

The finished pakora pictures didn't turn out that great, but the pakoras sure were tasty!

Serve these hot on their own or you could make a yogurt sauce for them. They are also very good reheated later.

Sesame Hot Bastard Noodles

Ah! Making these noodles was a test in patience. Not because they are so hard to make, they are actually quite easy. It was due to a series of unfortunate events. First, I spilled hot oil all over the stove and floor. It took nearly an hour to get it all cleaned up. Then I realized that I didn't have enough sesame seeds. Then, while I was toasting what little seeds I could find, I had to help my son chop the cilantro and I ended up almost burning the seeds. Then, when I put the peanut butter in the pan, it nearly burned too, even though I had the heat turned down to "warm". All while I was making the noodles I kept yelling "bastard" so my husband SSB suggested that would be a good name for them. I wasn't sure how they would turn out considering all the problems, but they were NUMMY!!

• 1 lb spaghetti
• 1 TBS sesame seeds
• 1 TBS sesame oil
• 1 TBS peanut butter, smooth or crunchy
  
• 2 TBS chopped chives
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• 2-3 TBS soy sauce
• 1 TBS lime juice
• 4 TBS chopped cilantro
• 1/16 - 1/8 tsp ground cayenne pepper
  
• 1/4 cup chopped cashews
• Salt and pepper
  

Toast sesame seeds. Turn down heat. Add a tablespoon of sesame oil (or just use what you have). Throw in minced garlic. When the garlic has turned translucent, add peanut butter. Sprinkle in cayenne pepper and add chopped chives. Stir in soy sauce and lime juice.

When everything is mixed into a nice sauce, remove from heat and add cilantro. Add the cooked, drained noodles and stir to coat them all with the sauce. Salt and pepper the whole thing. Top everything with cashew pieces and serve.