Hummus and Baba Ghanouj

Ah, Christmas. That most-relaxing time of year, where I sit around all day eating cookies, only to be interrupted by long walks with my sweet sisters. Fortunately, as well, this year our dog Humong didn't get into the dark chocolate and so we had Christmas dinner free from seizures and near-death experiences.

This year I decided to make hummus and baba ghanouj to add a little variety to the X-mas cuisine. After working for several weeks at Mezza in SE Portland, my tastebuds have been awakened to the wonderful world of Lebanese food. This food was also a hit both with my immediate family and with the extended relatives at the Christmas, aka Boxing Day party on December 26th.



The pita is great if you make it handmade as well. Here's recipes for all three.

Pita
1 package yeast (scant tablespoon)
1-1/2 cups warm water
1 teaspoon sugar

Dissolve these three ingredients and let sit for 10-15 minutes

Add:
1-1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups flour (gradually, stirring as you go)

Knead 10 minutes. Dough should be a little bit sticky. Add more flour if need be. Cover dough with olive oil and let rise in a warm place for one hour.
Heat oven to 550 degrees. Next, flour a working surface, and punch dough down. Divide into 8-10 pieces. Flatten the pieces to circular pieces about 6-7" in diameter. Cover a pan with olive oil (you can use a cookie sheet, a 9x12" lasagna pan, or pizza pan, it doesn't matter). Put 2-3 pieces of the uncooked pita onto the pan, the place in the oven. Bake on one side for four minutes, then open oven and flip and bake on the other side for 2 minutes. Pita should just be getting brown. Repeat the process until all of the pita is cooked. It is best to eat the pita immediately, but since this isn't always possible, be sure to re-heat in the OVEN and not the microwave. If you reheat in the microwave, the pita will become chewy.

Baba Ghanouj

1 large eggplant
1/4 cup tahini (can be found in grocery stores)
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon salt

Bake eggplant in 350 degree oven for about one hour until meat is tender. Cool ten minutes then peel and cut lengthwise. If cool enough, squeeze meat to remove excess liquid. Puree eggplant and all other ingredients in food processor. Garnish with olive oil and/or parsley.


Hummus

1-16 oz. can garbanzo beans
1/4 cup liquid from can of garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas)
3-5 Tablespoons of lemon juice
1-1/2 tablespoons of tahini
2 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil

Drain chickpeas and set aside liquid. Combine remaining ingredients in blender. Add 1/4 cup liquid from garbanzo beans. Blend 3-5 minutes until smooth. Garnish with parsley and olive oil.



YUM!!!

Cookie Exchange Party

Just had a great cookie exchange party.....this is a great way to socialize, drink wine, plus get a huge variety of cookies without having to bake a whole lot.

The way that it works is this: everyone bakes 3-6 dozen cookies, brings them to the party, and then all of the cookies are distributed evenly between all of the guests!

This is the recipe that I contributed. It is from the "Betty Crocket Baking Classics", a family favorite. They are pretty simple to make, and if you like almond flavoring like me they really hit the spot! (they are the pink and white cookies pictured above; for some reason I never put on the peppermint candy nor the granulated sugar, but it would probably be a tasty addition!)

Candy Cane Cookies

1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup margarine or butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
1 egg
1-1/2 t. almond or peppermint extract
1 t. vanilla
2-1/2 cups flour
3/4 t. salt
1/2 t. red food color
1/2 cup crushed peppermint candy
1/2 cup granulated sugar

Heat oven to 375. Mix powdered sugar, margarine, shortening, egg, almond extract and vanilla. Stir in flour and salt. Divide dough into halves. Tint 1 half with food color.

Four each candy cane, shape 1 teaspoon dough from each part into 4-inch rope. For smooth, even strips, roll back and forth on lightly floured board. Place 1 red and 1 white strip side by side; press together lightly and twist. Complete cookies 1 at a time. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Curve top down to form handle of cane. Bake until set and very light brown, about 9 minutes. Mix candy and granulates sugar; immediately sprinkle over cookies. Remove from cookie sheet. About 3 dozen cookies.

Candy Thermometer/PDX Grocery

In my search for the city's cheapest candy thermometer, I visited Goodwill and found a busted up one, Fredy Meyer had one on sale for $6, New Season, $13, and good-old Winco foods for a paltry $3.

Found some other great deals while at Winco; tuna, 58 cents a can (vs. over dollar other places), frozen orange juice concentrate, $1, a bottle of wine for $4.38 (and it isn't half bad!)

Left winco beating myself over the head with my candy thermometer wondering why I am not doing ALL of my grocery shopping there, ALL the time!! (except for Produce, which is a little bit on the iffy side; sometimes you get the feeling that thier heads of lettuce have been sitting on the counter for WAY too long....)

Christmas Carol

I volunteer for CAN here in Portland; Creative Advocacy Network; and this weeekend I manned the booth at Portland Center Stage and as a favor for volunteering we got tickets to the show a Christmas Carol~!

It was showing in the main theater and what a wonderful production I found it to be. I have seen this several times, I can even remember watching the Disney version when I was just five or six years old!

It was of course sad to see Scrooge pass up his opportunity for a full, joy-filled life of marriage and children in exchange for the pursuit of money, but also so nice to see his change of heart at the end, when he buys the largest turkey in town and has it delivered to Tiny Tim's house.

I sort of liked the Disney version better, where the ghost of Christmas future is Goofy, but the ghosts in this version were quite nice as well....the ghost of Christmas present (where Scrooge gets to see his nephew make a laughing stock of him at Christmas dinner) was dressed in a long red dress with a wand and a pointed red cap.

The show didn't have an intermission, it was about two hours long, but it didn't really need one. It flowed very nicely and not once was I bored!!!!

Cranberry relish

I made cranberry relish for the first time this Thanksgiving and man was this stuff GOOD!! I was skeptical at first since the recipe called for an ENTIRE orange~(peeling, rind, pulp) but decided to try it out anyway and man was I glad. Here's the recipe I found on the back of Ocean Spray cranberry bag, I modified it a little to add crushed walnuts and ginger (a good addition)

1 bag cranberries
1 entire orange, cut into small pieces (take out seeds)
3/4 c. of sugar, or more, to taste
1/2 c. walnuts, crushed
1/2 t. ginger

Process the cranberries and orange in a food processor until well blended. Add sugar until desired sweetness, then stir in walnuts and ginger. Refrigerage and serve chilled.

Note: I tried adding 1/2 c. this relish to a loaf of white bread to flavor it, and it wasn't so great. I may continue to experiment though with other bread recipes since the relish is SO GOOD it is bound to improve a loaf of bread as well. The relish tastes great on its own too! Enjoy!