Chipotle Hummus

I’ve had a ton of chipotle peppers in adobo, since every recipe seems to use just a bit, so I decided to try some chipotle hummus. I found this recipe at AllRecipes, and was enamored by the addition of both chipotles AND some healthy veggies.

Ingredients

• 2 (15.5 ounce) cans garbanzo beans, drained
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup tahini (sesame-seed paste)
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 canned chipotle pepper in adobo sauce
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
• 1 (7 ounce) jar roasted red bell peppers, drained
• 6 oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• ground black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Place the garbanzo beans, water, tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, chipotle pepper, garlic, and cumin in the bowl of a food processor; blend until smooth. Add the red peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, cilantro, salt, and pepper. Pulse the mixture until the ingredients are coarsely chopped into the hummus base. Transfer to a serving bowl, cover, and chill until ready to serve.

Verdict: I had to omit the tahini and cilantro, as the tahini is super-expensive here, and cilantro wasn’t available. However, I read other reviews that omitted the cilantro as well, with no ill effects. I added about a teaspoon of peanut butter, but didn’t want to add too much. That said, it wasn’t rich and creamy, but tasted watery. I think it’s due to the veggies. However, it makes a lot, so I have plenty left to experiment with.

Salt and Vinegar Chickpeas

I certainly haven’t missed the ravings about Angela’s salt-and-vinegar chips (and green beans), but I hadn’t gotten around to buying potatoes and vinegar at the same time. Then, I came across this variation on JL’s blog, JL goes Vegan, and thought another crunchy snack might be in order. Here’s what I did:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup chickpeas, soaked overnight
• 3-4 cups white vinegar
• 1 tsp Coarse sea salt
• 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

1. Add chickpeas and vinegar and place in a medium sized pot. Bring to a boil and cook as normal, 1-2 hours.
2. When chickpeas are cooked (try one, the vinegar turns a bit sweet), add a dash of sea salt and then remove from heat. Let sit in pot for 30 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 425F. Carefully drain chickpeas and return to pan. Drizzle with olive oil and salt, then mix with hands or a spoon, ensuring all chickpeas are coated with oil.
4. Place on a lightly-oiled baking sheet and roast for 45 minutes, flipping once half way through. Keep a careful eye on them after 35 minutes of cooking to ensure they don’t burn. The goal here is crispy and golden chickpeas, not black.

Comments: After popping these in the oven, I remembered my previous chickpea roasting failures. They never seem to turn out like the ones in the store. But, I was optimistic. Unfortunately, they were a bit ho-hum. The flavoring was all there, it just didn’t pop. And, some of the chickpeas were so hard I was afraid of breaking a tooth, while others stayed a bit spongy. They felt like a healthy snack, but nothing I’ll rush to make again.

Salt and Vinegar Chips

Well, I didn’t waste much time in recovering from my salt-and-vinegar chickpea debacle to give the vinegar another try. This time, I was a bit more confident, as oven-baked potatoes are one of my favorite treats in the world.

Here’s how it went down the second time:

Ingredients:

• Approx 3 cups (or more) white vinegar
• 3-4 medium sweet potatoes, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
• 1-1.5 tsp salt
• Very small sprinkle of ground black pepper
• 2 tsp Extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

Wash and slice up the potatoes into 1/4 inch rounds. Place in a medium sized pot. Pour vinegar into pot until all the potatoes are covered by the vinegar.

Bring to a boil and then reduce to medium heat for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit in pot for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, drain the potatoes and return to pan. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle salt and pepper, and mix with hands, then lay the potato rounds flat on a greased baking sheet.

Bake for 30-35 minutes at 425F. After 30 minutes of baking, flip carefully and bake for another 10-15 minutes, watching carefully not to burn the potatoes. Serve with ketchup and more sea salt if preferred. Enjoy!

Comments: Woa! Unlike the chickpeas, the vinegar was overpowering in this recipe! The potatoes seemed to take forever to bake (again, my oven was probably too low), and the acidic specimens that came out…well, they were a bit of a disappointment. The vinegar flavor was overpowering, I ended up dabbing some mayo on (something I rarely do) to tame the burn. Another bust.

Walnut Cheeze Spread

I’ve been attempting to eat more vegan, and intrigued by vegan cheezes for a while. I have no idea where to begin to look here in Argentina, but Alicia at Vegan Epicurean has also been talking about them. I finally bought some walnuts to make the cheeze, went back to her site, and…nothing?

So, I emailed her, and apparently walnuts are the one nut she hadn’t used to make cheeze! But she promised to try it out right away, and sure enough, within a few days, a very simple recipe was posted on her site, and I set to work, soaking my almonds.

All went according to plan, until I started the food processor. She warned you may have to scrape it down once or twice to get a smooth consistency. My mini-processor lasted about 10-seconds before needing a scrape down…and 10 more…and 10 more…and…well, finally I gave up, and decided it’d be tasyt or not, but it would never be creamy in my machine.

I stuck the mixture (smelling cheezey due to the nooch) in the fridge overnight, and checked it out the next day.

I can’t comment on cheesieness, as I have very little vegan cheeze experience, and the texture was WAY off for real cheese, but it definitely made a yummy spread, and I can see making it a PB substitute (since there’s no other nut butters sold here)… and maybe even a cheese sub, under the right circumstances?

Homemade Apple Sauce

I needed apple sauce for this recipe, and since it didn’t show up at my first two grocery stores, I decided to google it. Gold! This recipe, adapted from AllRecipes was perfect!

• 2 apples--cored and chopped
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 1/2 T. white sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

In a saucepan, combine apples, water, sugar, and cinnamon. Cover, and cook over medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes, or until apples are soft. Allow to cool, then process in a food processor.

Crepes

I've been craving crepes for days! Finally, I finished off my huge stockpile of veggies and salads, and was able to move on to satisfy my urge. I decided to go with this recipe, as it was easy to divide in half, and very clear cut. However, next time I'd like to try one that uses beer and see if there's a difference in the flavor.

Making Crepes

If you're making enough crepes to serve a lot of people, there are three easy ways to handle it. First, you can stick the crepes on a plate in a barely warm (200°F) oven, where they'll stay warm until you are ready to assemble them. Second, you can serve them as you make them. When serving family on a busy night, it's sometimes okay if people eat them as they are served. Third, it's not a big deal if the crepes cool down a little bit before you eat. If the filling is warm, it makes up for it.

To make about 20-24 crepes, you'll need:

4 eggs
¼ teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
2 ¼ milk
¼ cup (½ stick) melted butter or margarine

Sugar, rum, and vanilla for sweet crepes.

It is no problem to make a half-batch or a double-batch.

Making the Crepe Batter

1. Gather your ingredients.
2. Break four eggs into a bowl. Add 1/4 teaspoon of salt to eggs and whisk eggs and salt together until the egg looks uniformly yellow.
3. Measure two cups of flour and add some of the flour to the egg mixture.
4. Whisk the flour into the eggs. It will be a bit lumpy right now, but that's okay.
5. Whisk some of the milk into the batter. It will get thinner. Keep adding milk and flour alternately until you've added it all.
6. Whisk the batter until it is smooth. It shouldn't take more than a minute or two to whisk it smooth, from the time you started to add the flour.
7. Add the melted butter to the batter, and again whisk it until it's smooth.
8. Cover the batter.
9. Put the batter in the refrigerator

At this point, your batter is ready to go, and you can begin making the crepes whenever you are ready. You can the batter a few hours or even a day in advance of when you make the crepes. If you let it sit for a long time, the butter will separate from the rest of the batter, but you just need to whisk it for ten seconds or so, and it will be ready to use. I've kept my batter for several days, and it has been fine. After a couple of days, the batter gets a bit darker in color, but the crepes still taste fine.

If I'm making the batter right before I make the crepes, I refrigerate the batter while I prepare the filling.

Cooking the Crepes

1. Select a non-stick skillet (8 inches is ideal).

2. Preheat your pan on medium heat. Use about one-fourth of a cup of batter for an 8 inch pan.

3. Pour the batter into the pan.

4. As you pour the batter, twirl the pan around.

5. As you twirl the pan, the batter coats it and makes the crepe. If you put in too little batter to begin with, pour in some extra batter to fill in the gaps.

6. As the crepe cooks, it changes in appearance. The batter starts out looking moister and hasn't set. Once it has set, it’s still a bit moist. You can usually see a lace pattern developing on the underside of the crepe.

7. When the crepe has set you can see the spatula through the crepe. The crepe will also usually slide around when it is ready. (It make stick a bit a the edges though.)

8. Slip the spatula under the crepe. Sometimes you need to poke it a bit. If it helps to pick up the edge of the crepe with your fingers, do it.

9. Flip the crepe over. Look at that nice lace pattern on the crepes. If you're skillful, you can flip the crepe with a quick action of the wrist and no spatula.

10. After the second side has cooked for maybe twenty seconds, slip it out of the pan onto a plate for serving, or into a baking dish that you can put into a warmed (200°F) oven.

Comments: These turned out great! Well, the recipe was easy enough. I didn't get much crepe, I think I used too much unseasoned spinach and too little cheese, so it mostly tasted like spinach, until I went for the dessert crepes. Dulce de leche was purchased for the occassion, and yum! Mine weren't too circular, as my pan was pretty big, and I didn't want to attempt giant crepes, but otherwise they were fabulous and easy.

"Miniature" soft pretzels

Well, these weren't mini by any definition I've seen, although I guess if you make them half-size, they'd be cute.  I made the mistake of following Martha's recipe for the first half, and Smitten Kitchen definitely made some improvements.  

Soft Pretzels (Smitten Kitchen)

Adapted from Martha Stewart

Makes 16 full-sized or 32 miniature

2 cups warm water (100°F to 110°F)
1 tablespoon + 2 tablespoons sugar
1 packet active dry yeast
5 to 6 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons canola or other neutral oil
1/4 cup baking soda
1 large egg
Coarse or pretzel salt

Vegetable-oil cooking spray

1. Pour warm water into bowl of electric mixer fitted with a dough hook*. In a small bowl, combine water and 1 tablespoon sugar, and stir to dissolve sugar. Sprinkle with yeast, and let sit 10 minutes; yeast should be foamy. 

2. Add 1 cup flour to yeast, and mix on low until combined. Add salt and 4 cups flour, and mix until combined, about 30 seconds. Beat on medium-low until dough pulls away from sides of bowl, about 1 1/2 minutes. Add 1/2 cup flour, and knead on low 1 minute more. If dough is still wet and sticky, add 1/2 cup more flour (this will depend on weather conditions); knead until combined, about 30 seconds. Transfer to a lightly floured board, and knead about ten times, or until smooth.

3. Pour oil into a large bowl; swirl to coat sides. Transfer dough to bowl, turning dough to completely cover all sides. Cover with a kitchen towel, and leave in a warm spot for 1 hour, or until dough has doubled in size.

4. Heat oven to 450°F. Lightly spray two baking sheets with cooking spray (parchment paper, ungreased, also works). Set aside. Punch down dough to remove bubbles. Transfer to a lightly floured board. Knead once or twice, divide into 16 pieces (about 2 1/2 ounces each) or 32 if making miniature pretzels, and wrap in plastic.

5. Roll one piece of dough at a time into an 18-inch-long strip. [I find the pretzels much easier to roll on an unfloured board, oddly enough, but see what works for you.] Twist into pretzel shape; transfer to prepared baking sheet. Cover with a kitchen towel. Continue to form pretzels; eight will fit on each sheet (you may need a third sheet if making miniatures). Let pretzels rest until they rise slightly, about 15 minutes.

6. Meanwhile, fill large, shallow pot with 2 inches of water. Bring to a boil. Add baking soda (and step back, it foams up quickly) and remaining 2 tablespoons sugar. Reduce to a simmer; transfer three to four pretzels to water. Poach 1 minute on each side. Use slotted spoon to transfer pretzels to baking sheet. Continue until all pretzels are poached.

7. Beat egg with 1 tablespoon water. Brush pretzels with egg glaze. Sprinkle with salt. Bake until golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool on wire rack, or eat warm. Pretzels are best when eaten the same day, but will keep at room temperature, uncovered, for two days. Do not store in covered container or they will become soggy.

* These days, I mix all of my bread doughs by hand, with a wooden spoon. I find it a fantastically easy process, and not very hard to stir by hand. No need to mix for several minutes, just a minute or so after it looks combined. To save even more dishes, I rinse out the bowl, oil it and use it for proofing the dough. And you thought making bread wasn’t simple!

The only change is that the salt needs to be adjusted for Argentina.