This one called for 1 small onion, olive oil, 12 oz of green beans (I used about a pint basket’s worth), 15 to 20 fresh sage leaves and 2 Tbs of orange juice.(I used the juice of one Orange)
The recipe called for the onion to be fried, in olive oil, along with the green beans, sage leaves and salt. Once the dish was all cooked, not as brown as she suggested, you put in the orange juice and stir somewhere.

all that were left

As I said, it was a hit, and eaten up so fast I didn’t’ get a picture of it. This was the last bit, before it too was requested, and then there was nothing.

My finished hummus, in all its glory

Farmer's Market hummus from "The Mint" in Scotts Valley

I went to the store to see what was in the tahini, just in case I gave up and bought some. I actually found some that didn’t have any other ingredients then sesame seeds, but that got me even more of a mind to make my own. However, I couldn’t figure out how to grind the seeds.  I don’t have food processor, though I do have a blender.  My partner came up with an idea. She suggested using her coffee grinder, or the mortar and pestle.  Next time I will try that. This time, I tried the coffee grinder, though it didn’t work all that well, and few seeds weren’t ground.

Then came adding all the ingredients. I was missing scallions, so threw in some garlic scrapes which didn’t work quite the way I wanted, and didn’t really grind in the blender. I also threw in a red pepper, because the one I liked from The Mint had that in it, even though it wasn’t in the recipe I was following.

Nothing ground up very well, including the garbanzo beans, which tended to stay on top. Granted, I don’t use the blender that often, and perhaps that is the way it always works, that you have to shift, and move stuff as it pures.

After shifting, and grinding, I finally came up with something that resembled hummus, and I pulled it out of the of the blender. That is what I took the photo of.

It is not as smooth as store-bought, but it does taste like hummus, so I guess I succeeded. Not sure if I will do it quite this way next time, but one food I can tick off my list.

I tend to cook on weekends, when I am not busy with work, and each project takes most of my weekend. This weekend, I thought I had picked an easy recipe, Hummus.

I am using the New Moosewood Cookbook, as I like that series. The recipe said it would take about 10 minutes to prepare but, this is a but, after the chickpeas are cooked. The big if.  What they don’t tell you, is that 1) Chickpeas are called Garbanzo beans and 2) that you have to soak them overnight and 3) and then cook them for an hour and a half.

But, I didn’t want to go with canned anything, if I was making this from scratch, so off to the store I went, in search of chickpeas, which I never found. I wandered up and down the bulk section, until I wondered over to the deli to look up pre-made hummus to see what the name of the main ingredient was.  Ah, it was Garbanzo Beans, so back to the bulk section to buy some.

Left over chickpeas from the soaking of three cups

What I didn’t know was how much they would expand, when soaked, though I suppose I should have guessed. I put three cups, as that was what I needed, into water over night. This afternoon, I pulled out three cups, to cook, and have a bowl full of soaked garbanzo beans left over, that I will have to find a use for.

More on this tomorrow, when I do more work on this 10 minute recipe, and tell about how to make tahini (rather than buying store bought of that).

And all this for a little hummus. Oy vey.