Homemade Hummus

Every night on my way home from work, I drive through Little Ethiopia and fantasize about Ethiopian food. Ethiopian food, if you’ve never had it, is usually made of a variety of fantastically spicy stews served on this spongy flat sourdough bread called injera, which is kind of a cross between a pancake and bread. I started thinking about making Ethiopian food at home, and since injera is integral to the Ethiopian food experience, I started scheming as to how to make my own injera too. It’s made from a grain called teff, and you need your own teff based starter that captures wild yeast, and you need to make it over at least three days and …

Do you see where I’m going with this? I literally DRIVE THROUGH LITTLE ETHIOPIA ON MY WAY HOME EVERY DAY. How much easier would it be to just stop one night and pick up some Ethiopian food and injera than it would be to go through the whole rigmarole of finding teff, getting a starter going, making the injera, making the stew not having it taste nearly as good AND then doing the dishes? I’m a big believer in jumping into cooking projects, because homemade is usually better and easy to make, but some culinary escapades just don’t make sense.

Hummus, however, is not one of those escapades.  Yes, you can buy about sixteen varieties of hummus at nearly every grocery store, but it is totally worth making at home, since it is 1) a snap to make 2) inexpensive and 3) infinitely customizable.

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Grilled Pimento Cheese Sandwiches

My grandmother belongs to that certain generation that came of cooking age in the 1950’s and embraced the introduction of convenience foods with fervor.   This means that Cool Whip is in her freezer, Jello is in her salads, and every dinner party starts with crackers and spreadable cheese — a lurid orange concoction with unpronounceable ingredients that conveniently comes in a tub, or, for more elegant occasions, a ball rolled in pecans.  (To be fair, my grandmother is otherwise a very good cook, and it is entirely possible that my grandchildren will find my ca. 2009 obsession with sriracha and pico de gallo to be equally quaint.)

When I was asked one time to bring hors d’oeuvres to a family party (all parties in our family are potlucks) I cast about for something new besides the regular old brie and crackers, and remembered a program I had seen on the Food Network.  On this program, someone had been exploring the food traditions of this exotic land they called the American South, and had set forth at length about a cornerstone of this food tradition — pimento cheese.  Bingo!  I thought, homemade spreadable cheese.  I figured my grandmother, at least would appreciate it.

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Spring Pea Soup

Springtime may be the most eagerly anticipated time of the year. I have vivid memories of the first warm day of each year when I lived on the East Coast – people would emerge from hibernation, cast off their coats and rush outside to soak up every last ray of sunshine. Even in Southern California, where “winter” means that the temperature is more likely to be in the high 60’s than the high 70’s and flowers bloom year round, springtime seems to be especially lovely, with more flowers, green hills, and birdsong.

But springtime, while lovely, is also fickle, and it’s just as likely to blow cold as it is to blow hot. It rained in Los Angeles yesterday. In April! This is a desert! And it’s snowing today in New York. This of course, leads to the ultimate culinary conundrum – we’re tired of the heavy stews and root vegetables of winter, but we’re not ready for the light salads of the warmer months. You could plan your meal for seventy five degrees and sunny only to find it’s fifty and blustery at dinnertime. Or vice versa.

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Butternut Squash Soup with Vadouvan

I admit it – I have an ingredient fetish. My husband constantly accuses me of taking over our limited refrigerator and pantry space with an overabundance of exotic condiments and ingredients. My reaction is, of course, to deny deny deny, but I do admit that when I see a new vegetable at the farmer’s market, I can rarely resist picking one up to see what I can do with it.

As you can imagine, I was particularly intrigued when I caught whiff of a new spice mix while watching last season’s Top Chef (and if you weren’t watching, why not? It’s great TV). Chef Jamie Lauren of San Francisco’s Absinthe talked about her “secret ingredient”, vadouvan, and my ears immediately perked up. What was this mysterious spice? And where could I get some?

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The Big Easy

Few dishes are as strongly associated with one city as Red Beans and Rice is with New Orleans. Louis Armstrong reportedly signed all of his letters “Red Beans and Rice-ly yours” in a nod to his hometown, where red beans and rice is a traditional Monday dish. And it’s no wonder that Red Beans and Rice are a signature dish of the Big Easy — they are easy to prepare, easy to afford, and easy to eat. Just a few ingredients — beans, some vegetables, a few spices — are transformed. It may not LOOK like much, but it tastes just dandy.

The simplicity, of course, made it perfect for my week of low budget meals. Dried beans are inexpensive, the vegetables are staples, and I have a well stocked spice cabinet. This is also a dish that is regularly in rotation in my household, because it cooks best in the crockpot. And if you are a working mother (or working anything, frankly), the crockpot should be your friend.
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