Hummus

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It makes me cringe to see the prices they charge for a container of hummus at the grocery store. It’s much less expensive to make it yourself, it only takes 10 minutes and it tastes so fresh you won’t want store-bought hummus again.

This will keep in the fridge for days but drizzle a little good quality olive oil on top and leave it on the kitchen table with a few toasted pita wedges and it won’t make it to the fridge. You can add more garlic if you like or a little chopped hot pepper. Roasted garlic works well too. To really dress it up, top the hummus with some sautéed ground beef or lamb seasoned with a little sumac.

Classic hummus

1-1/2 cups dried chickpeas, soaked in water overnight (or two tins)

Juice of two lemons (more or less to taste)

1/3 cup of tahini

1/2 cup water (use the cooking water from the chickpeas or tap water if you are using canned chickpeas)

2-3 cloves garlic

1 teaspoon ground cumin

Salt

Olive oil

A sprinkle of paprika or sumac

Cook the soaked chickpeas in six cups of water for 90 minutes until very tender.

Place cooled chickpeas (or rinsed canned peas) in a food processor and add garlic. Pulse until roughly chopped. Add lemon juice, tahini, cumin and water and pulse until smooth. Add more water if the mixture is too thick. Add salt to taste and pulse again.

Serve sprinkled with a little sumac or paprika and a good drizzle of quality olive oil. Toast a few pita wedges (350 F oven for 10 minutes or so until crisp) to scoop up the hummus. Enjoy.

Salad days

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You know you’ve just come through a perfect summer weekend when it’s Thursday and your still relaxed.  Even bumpy-flighted business travel, cranky bean counters and a moderate earthquake can’t get you agitated (although, I have to admit, being on the 13th floor of an office tower like I was when the building starts to shake is a little disconcerting while it’s happening). A warm weekend at the lake is the perfect tonic for a work-weary soul (and, if you do happen to have the perfect tonic, you can mix it with a little gin, but I digress).

Planning ahead in the kitchen means more precious  hammock time in the afternoon. A few good steaks or some homemade burger patties in the fridge go nicely with this crisp, tangy  summer salad, which you can make in the morning before things heat up or the gin kicks in.

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Rhubarb – no kids allowed

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There were only three plants that thrived in the tiny  backyard behind the tiny house I grew up in. One was a vicious climbing rose that strangled the fence and lived to lacerate any children stupid enough to venture near (mostly me). The second was a pussy willow that had grown from a single stem rooted in a glass of water on the window sill when I was eight or nine. Even as a child I knew the willow was a stunted, hideous thing allowed to live only because I had grown it myself.

It’s a bit of a mystery why nothing much grew in that backyard – the garden next door was magnificent and the Greek family’s yard two doors down was a Mediterranean riot of tomatoes, grapes, beans and eggplants. But, for some reason, even the spindly dandelions in our yard struggled. The only thing (besides the killer rose and the warped willow) that prospered was the rhubarb patch.

I am not sure if we ever actually made anything with the rhubarb, but it was an early summer ritual for the kids on our street to show up at my house to get a little bowl of sugar and a couple of stalks  of rhubarb stripped of their (we were sternly warned) deadly leaves. Then, we’d all sit on the front steps dipping the stalks in sugar before chewing off the smallest bite, grimacing at the sourness that even a thick coat of sugar couldn’t fend off.

When our friend Maria recently brought over a bunch of rhubarb from her own backyard I was sorely tempted to gather the kids on the porch and start the rhubarb-in-sugar tradition at our house.  But I realized the most that suggestion would get me would be a couple of texts that went something like this: “omg u won’t believe what my dad just tried to make me eat! 4get it. lol.” World-wide ridicule on the world-wide web.

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Prosciutto-wrapped asparagus

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For those who think I’m developing a serious asparagus dependency I can only repeat that the season is short and it will be over soon (I’m getting withdrawal symptoms just writing that). For the rest of you who, like me, have 14 of your wife’s closest colleagues stopping by for drinks after work today and you don’t know what you’re going to feed them, read on – your troubles are over.

Just about everything tastes better wrapped in cured pork and asparagus is no exception. In this case, a good quality prosciutto does the trick nicely. Wrap each asparagus spear with a thin slice of prosciutto, coat them with a few drops of olive oil and grill them over medium heat until the prosciutto starts to get crispy.(don’t add extra salt like I did in the test batch I made and devoured the other night – the prosciutto is salty enough).

A celebratory sandwich

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For the Boy-O-Matic Eating Machine’s 17th birthday dinner the other night I offered to cook whatever he wanted.

“Prime rib?” I asked.

“Ham melts,” he replied.

“With mashed potatoes?”

“With cheese.”

“And Yorkshire pudding?”

“And onions.”

Ham melts it was. Favourite meals, It seems, don’t have to be elaborate.

If, like my son, you love sandwiches then you’ll love this new slide-show of the 101 best sandwiches in New York. There are some stunning creations, some with equally outrageous names. My favourite, Number 86 – The Pig’s Ass Sandwich. If your still not sated,  there are  more inspiring photos of great sandwiches here.

Simple ham melt

Serves 4 adults (or two teenagers)

1 baguette, sliced horizontally

1 to 1-1/2 lbs cooked ham, sliced fairly thickly

1/2 pound sharp Cheddar cheese, grated

1 large onion, sliced

2 tablespoons olive or canola oil

Dijon mustard

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Set the oven on broil and line a baking sheet with parchment paper (this gets messy)

While the oven is getting hot, add the oil to a sauté pan on medium heat and add the onion and a little salt and pepper, turning the onion slices so they are well coated with oil. Cook, stirring frequently until onion is  caramelized (about 15-20 minutes). Set onions aside.

Place the bottom half of the baguette on the parchment paper-covered pan and place under broiler until toasted. Remove and coat very lightly with Dijon mustard.

Place hot ham (you can heat it up by steaming it for a few minutes) on bottom half of baguette. Top with onions and shredded cheese.  Place the top half of the baguette (cut side facing up) on the parchment paper and put the baking sheet back in the oven. Broil until cheese is melted and top half of baguette is lightly toasted (about a minute). Grind a little pepper on top. Place the top on the sandwich and cut into servings. Serve with lots of napkins.

Try this: Grilled Cheddar, apple and bacon sandwich

Cream of asparagus soup

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Opening the crisper drawer after I have been away for a week is a lot like opening a time capsule or, an Egyptian tomb – a rush of ancient air desperate to rejoin the space-time continuum.

I close the drawer quickly before something else slithers out and wonder what my family ate while I was away. Then I check the recycling bin and count the pizza boxes using the fingers on both hands.

I mourn briefly the tree that died so my family could avoid preparing a single meal while I was away. This one must have been sizable judging from the cardboard overflowing the bin. It was likely a sapling when Columbus stumbled (tired and hungry like I am now) into the New World, unleashing a chain of unfortunate events that inevitably led to this.

But who am I trying to kid? I should know by now that filling the fridge with fresh food before I leave is pointless; my family would likely eat the cat before they considered steaming broccoli.

Opening the crisper drawer again I know that it is not treasure I will find. No gold-encrusted Tutankhamen for me, just mould-encrusted Rootandlemon. I breathe deeply and insert an arm – this is where dinner is coming from tonight, no matter what; I refuse to give another hard-earned dime to Pizza Pizza.

One by one, I pull out things that only vaguely resemble their edible antecedents – a mummified bell pepper, a semi-liquid lettuce (poor thing), a few furry carrots and a lemon badly in need of plastic surgery. And then…

And then, like manna from heaven, a large bunch of asparagus I bought at the market the day before I left. And, miracle of miracles, it’s still good. Sure, I have to bend it almost double before it snaps, but it beats the double-pepperoni alternative.

And guess what? The soup is delicious and nobody asks where it came from and I feel (just a little) like Indiana Jones.

Cream of asparagus soup

Serves 4. This soup is good hot or cold.

3 shallots, chopped

2 tablespoons butter

1 large bunch (about 1-1/2 pounds) asparagus, trimmed and chopped into 1-inch pieces

Juice of 1/2 lemon

4 cups chicken stock

1/2  cup 35% cream

Chopped fresh chives for garnish

Salt and pepper

Add butter to a large pan over medium heat, cook shallots until soft and translucent. Add asparagus, lemon juice and stock. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about five minutes until asparagus is tender. Remove a few asparagus tips and reserve.

Transfer soup to food processor or blender and puree until very smooth. You may need to do this in batches. Return to pan and add cream. Heat through until hot but not boiling.

Garnish with reserved asparagus tips and chives.

Red meat gets a reprieve

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Finally, a scientific study that suggests hamburgers may not be that bad after all.  The conclusions, published in the journal Circulation, found that there was no causal link between red meat and heart disease. This fantastic news comes to us from very smart people at Harvard so it has to be right. The study suggested that it is sodium and chemical preservatives that contribute to heart issues, not the meat itself. So, bacon, ham and sausage are still culprits. And red meat is still a suspect in some colon crimes so, it’s not off the hook yet.  But at least you can eat a hamburger to your heart’s content.

I can say, after a juicy half pound of  due diligence of my own, that a hamburger tastes just as deliciously bad for you as it did before the latest study.

Here’s my version, made with grass-fed Lincoln Red beef from the farm we support as CSA members. Yes, it does have bacon on it, but it is our favourite artisanal bacon made without nitrates. These are best cooked on the barbecue (seared and then moved to indirect heat to cook through) although I sometimes fry them in a pan and finish in the oven (350 F).

I will have to stop calling this burger the Heart Stopper (at least until another study comes out).

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Grilled asparagus with tarragon butter sauce

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“This is the dawning of the Age of Asparagus
Age of Asparagus
Asparagus! Asparagus!”

I’m not sure what it is about this annual refrain that gets L so annoyed. I think it’s very clever and it makes for a delightful little ear worm that stays with you all day (you’ll see).

No apologies to L or The 5th Dimension. This is my anthem to spring, the song that heralds my favourite season – you guessed it – asparagus season.

Every year I watch the supermarket signs closely. Asparagus from Chile, Peru, Mexico, California. Finally, it’s from here. Asparagus has to be fresh. And then, for a few short weeks, it’s part of almost every meal. Prompting my son to say the other night, “why can’t we just eat normal vegetables like broccoli?”

If, like my son, you’re not a fan, here’s a list of what you’re missing (according to Wikipedia): “Asparagus is low in calories, contains no cholesterol and is very low in sodium. It is also a good source of vitamin B6, calcium, magnesium and zinc, and a very good source of dietary fibre, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K, thiamin, riboflavin, rutin, niacin, folic acid, iron, phosphorus, potassium, copper, manganese and selenium.” This stuff is practically medicine.

So, sing along. “This is the dawning of the Age of….”

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Calas redux

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Meats, Roots and Leaves reader Debra sent in some pictures of her version of calas, New Orleans fried rice cakes. Here’s what she said about them:

“Someone said food lovers don’t talk about calories, totally agreed with that so here comes my Calas. Kid and husband love it and asked me to make it again, although I completely forgot the icing sugar and also told them it’s made of leftover rice.”

Thanks for sharing!

Chocolate chip oatmeal waffle cookies

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Way back in the deep cupboard above the fridge, among the jumble of hideous vases, unused fondue pots, forgotten jars of homemade preserves brought as party gifts and an entire box of licorice allsorts from Christmas 2007, is our waffle iron.

Actually, it’s our daughter’s waffle iron, bought as a birthday gift a few years ago after she expressed a desperate need for homemade waffles.

“I like pancakes better,” she said after the first batch.

So, there it sits, next to the cocktail shaker that hasn’t been used since that horrible Cosmopolitan Christmas Eve (No, that’s not true. Christmas Eve was actually pretty good; it was Christmas Day that was a little rough. And, the kids really under-appreciated the unique and interesting ways their toys were assembled).

Every once in a while – when I am searching for a light bulb or chucking in some more junk – I see it. I always think, we should have some waffles.

But we never do.

I was looking at it just the other day and I was tempted to admit that our daughter is right – that at heart we’re pancake people – and give the thing away.

Then, that very afternoon, I stumbled across this recipe. Coincidence? I don’t think so. More like divine intervention. Our waffle iron is saved!

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