quasify

As promised, the recipe for homemade hummus, stolen from the MIT Hummus Experience workshop. As it so happens, I’m wearing at this very moment one of their Hummus Junkie t-shirts. I’ve never been prouder of my wardrobe.

George’s Hummus
1 can (15 oz) chick peas
2-4 tablespoon tahini
1.25 fl oz lemon juice (1 lemon)
1 clove fresh garlic
cumin, salt and zhug* to taste
olive oil for garnish.

Blend chickpeas w/ some of the canned liquid. Peel and add garlic, re-blend. In a mixing bowl add the tahini and mix manually. Lastly, add the lemon juice (some kind of funky chemical thing will happen here and it’s important not to mix the lemon and tahini until the latter is suspended in the chickpea mix). Lastly add cumin, salt & zhug then cover with a bit of olive oil.

*Zhug here (pronounced, roughly, skl-oog) is a Yemini pepper sauce made from garlic (2 heads), cayenne peppers (5 big un’s, de-seeded), cardamon (1/2 teaspoon ground), caraway (3 teaspoons), coriander (a big bunch), a pinch of salt and black pepper (2 teaspoons).

Some more information on their taste-off event today since it’s behind a facebook firewall of doom.

January 28 • 12 – 2 pm
MIT • Building 10, Bush Room, Cambridge MA
DIRECTIONS: http://www.facebook.com/l/3387d;whereis.mit.edu/?go=10
Vote for the best home-made hummus at MIT. Help choose the best hummus at MIT’s annual “made from scratch” hummus taste-off! Be dazzled by the variations in flavor and texture. This year’s Taste Off features Hummus ice cream made exclusively by J.P. Licks, live Israeli music, free “Hummus Junkie” t-shirts, and free hummus tubs!

A few photos from Waterville. Short narrative version: I suck at the snowboarding thing, but still it’s fun. The only bad part (other than the soft tissue damage from the repeated wipeouts) was that nobody wanted to play scrabble. Next time.

Over the weekend I wanted to try something special so I made a gooseberry dessert. For many in my family gooseberries hold a somewhat peculiar place of honor, being held (in the context of pies) to esteem above all other fruits. It’s difficult to purchase gooseberries here in the northeast, an irritation related to either low supply or demand. I’ve never really met other people who have actively liked gooseberries and most people I mention them to have never even tried them. So anyway after looking at a stupid high number of grocery stores I ended up borrowing a can with a promise to pay the loaner back two-fold after I get around to ordering my own.

So anyway, in brief, my gooseberry tart thing recipe (hashed out with help of my mom & internet strangers).

1) Mix a can of gooseberries, two thirds cup sugar and three tablespoons of flour together, bring a gentle boil. Let that cool. It will set up into a liquidy gel.

2) Make a top/bottom pie crust recipe. Instead of balling in two, make 8 to 12 smaller balls.

3) Mix an 8oz cream cheese (softened) w/ three tablespoons of sugar.

4) Flatten small balls (optionally, with your newly purchased and totally bitchin’ rolling pin), smush a tablespoon or two of cream cheese in the center and cover with a similar amount of the cooled gooseberries.

5) Crimp those bad boys shut and trim excess. We’ll have to pretend like I did this part of the recipe correctly.

6) Bake at 400 for 10-14 minutes.

My not-very-objective opinion is these tasted pretty decent but didn’t turn out to be terribly attractive. I think had I baked them in a mini-cupcake cooking sheet instead of on a flat pan it might have kept the three dimensionality I imagined when I started the project. Next time.