Yesterday I went on a cooking rampage... I mean literally I went nuts. But when you go nuts with cooking - it simply means more to eat :-). I made hummus, a raw beet salad/ slaw, Jalapeno corn bread, and a deeeelicious black bean soup. I was supper proud of myself because I made every thing from scratch. Here are a few pics of what I made:
Comfort food to me = soup and bread. Because I had all of that corn from the farmers market and the jalapenos that Chris gave me, I decided to make corn bread. It was the first time that I had both eaten raw corn off of the cob as well as cut off the kernels from the ear. It was soooo cool. I actually meant to add the whole ear of corn to the bread, but once I got to munching on those sweet kernals, it was a wrap. About 3/4 of an ear of corn made it in. Here is the recipe: Cornbread. The adaptations that I made were that I decreased the sugar to 4 tablespoons (the corn was preety sweet) and I don't typically have buttermilk in the house, so I made a vegan version with 1 cup of rice milk mixed with 1 TBS of apple cider vinegar. Nice taste and crumble mmmm.
This is the black bean soup with the cornbread. I adapted this recipe from the Black Bean Soup with Cumin and Jalapeño here. This soup was extra yummy - especially on the dreary, rainy day we had yesterday. It was full of flavor and comforting. The only change that I made to the recipe is with the canned beans - I used dried beans and quick soaked and cooked them.
Now on to one of my favorite dips... hummus. Again I consulted all recipes for my hummus dip. I had some chick peas left over from the Channa I made earlier in the week, so I figured that since I had the blender out anyway, I might as well make the hummus. The recipe is here. Adaptations that I made: I used dried chickpeas that had been soaked and cooked and I also used a teaspoon of lemon to brighten up the flavor. I garnished it with paprika and minced jalapenos. To be honest with you, I'll eat it, but I wasn't crazy about the flavor or the texture of the dip. I think that next time I'll add a little tahini, and try not to compare it to the ultra smooth commercially made hummus that my palate is accustomed to.
Last but certainly not least.... The raw beet salad. The recipe was found here. By the time I got to the beets it was pretty late, hence the lighting, but it was a lot of fun to make. This salad took all of 10 minutes to pull together which was pretty good considering the amount of time that it took to prepare and cook the rest of the food items. I would have never considered adding fresh lemon and orange juice to beets, but it works. Because the beets are sweet anyway the citrus flavors adds a nice refreshing kick. Outside of tasting for flavor, I couldn't eat this last night because the flavors would have messed up my soup and cornbread high, but as I munch on it this morning, it's great. The flavors have had a chance to mix and mingle and the beets have retained their color and crunch. Yum! This is the perfect summer salad.
