summary: recipes for hummus (based on a recipe in “Mediterranean Street Food” by Anissa Helou) and pita chips; information about My Legume Love Affair, Two For Tuesdays! (Real Food) and Yeast Spotting; (click on image to see larger views and more photos)

My Legume Love Affair #24

Since January, I have been meaning and meaning to post about hummus. I absolutely adore hummus but until this year, we had never succeeded in making really good hummus. And then we got Anissa Helou’s really wonderful book “Mediterranean Street Food”.

Hommus is now part of the global menu, sold in most Western supermarkets neatly spooned into hygienic plastic tubs with trendy labels. But when hommus is sold on the streets in Syria, it is squeezed into plastic bags [...]. Not perhaps the saftest way to package such a creamy concoction but an amusing one. - Anissa Helou, Mediterranean Street Food, p.68

Following that is a clear, easy to follow recipe. And our search for really good homemade hummus was over. This hummus is fabulous!!

It’s SO much better than any of the commercially purchased hummus we’ve tried. Not to mention that it’s much less expensive when made from scratch. (continue reading…)

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summary: two seasonal vegetables barbecued together: asparagus and baby red onions; rave about our weekly farmers’ market; information about “Two For Tuesdays! (real food)” and roquette; (click on images to see larger views and more photos)

Every Monday evening, we have the most wonderful weekly farmers’ market set up just a block away. I love going there to see the neighbourhood milling around, tasting samples and filling their cloth bags and baskets with things grown nearby. (There are a couple of vendors who are selling things that come from very far away too. I’m not quite sure how they manage to define themselves as “local” but there it is…. Perhaps it’s because they live nearby. But enough vague grousing.)

Last week, we got the most fabulous goat’s cheese from Montforte (we’re SO glad they have returned this year after a year’s absence!). And as we were strolling away from the Montforte table, we noticed that one fellow nearby was selling bunches of baby red onions. I’m not positive, but I believe they were the onions he had thinned and that we can expect full grown red onions later this summer.

We already had bought asparagus (Ontario, of course) but we really couldn’t resist getting the onions too. They were too beautiful. (continue reading…)

summary: oatmeal topping for multigrain bread; playing with the grain combinations; update on faux clotted cream; submission for YeastSpotting; (click on images to see larger views and more photos)

I love our multigrain bread. In fact, it is my choice for sandwiches and toast. But with the price and general unavailability of rye flour, I’ve been fooling around with substitutions. Sometimes I’ve use a mixture of rice and rye flour, sometimes a mixture of corn and rice (and zero rye).

I’ve also been adding a little less yeast. It’s possible that I may have gone too far the other day. (continue reading…)

summary: recipe for shaker lemon pie – easily the best lemon pie I’ve ever had (recipe includes pastry made with lard); SAVEUR magazine is wonderful and why it’s a good reason to keep back issues; (click on images to see larger views and more photos)

Isn’t SAVEUR magazine great? Some years ago (longer ago than I had realized until quite recently), I was given a subscription to the magazine. I was ecstatic. I generally read each one cover to cover then put it out for T to read. For some reason, last month it took me longer than usual to get through the current issue and there was murmuring. Discontented murmuring:

he: I think I have this last issue of SAVEUR memorized. It’s been here for ages. Can we have a different one?

So I went deep into our stack of back issues and pulled out No.50 from April 2001. (Really?! We’ve been getting SAVEUR for about 10 years?!) My reason for picking that particular issue was the really beautiful picture of lemons and pie on the front cover and the title “American Pie”.

And not long afterward, there were new murmurs. Contented murmurs:

he: Mmmmmmm… do we have any lemons?

me: I think so. Why?

he: I want to make Shaker Lemon Pie. I can’t believe we didn’t make it before.

me: Okay… And Shaker Lemon Pie is??

he: You’ll see.

And I did see. And I can’t believe we didn’t make Shaker Lemon Pie before either. How on earth did we miss noticing it? It’s fabulous. It’s the best lemon pie I’ve ever had.

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summary: two recipes: scones and a reasonable facsimile for clotted cream made with yoghurt and goat’s cheese; information about “Two For Tuesdays!” and “Cook the Books“ (click on images to see larger views and more photos)

We were reading Nigel Slater’s “Eating for England”:

Scones remain the single essential item in the important matter of afternoon tea [...] [A] scone should be between four and six centimetres high, and should break neatly in half without recourse to a knife. Smaller ones are especially charming. Nothing offered on the tea tray should ever be bigger than two bites [...] Which bright spark came up with the idea of including sultanas in the mix we shall never know. It is the very plainness of a scone that makes it so eminently suited to a life, albeit a short one, covered in butter, jam and clotted cream. Sultanas turn the whole thing into a dog’s dinner.

-Nigel Slater, “Eating for England”, Scones and the Sultana Problem, p.110-111

And we suddenly neeeeeeded to have scones. Scones without sultanas. Because he’s definitely right about that! Sultanas in scones?? Ewwwwww! (The only place that sultanas belong are in Nigella’s chicken.)

However, he’s wrong wrong wrong that the scone should be fruit-free. (continue reading…)

summary: fresh cracked black pepper linguini tossed with ham, chili flakes, fiddleheads, onions and broccoli; asparagus as an alternative to fiddleheads; information about Presto Pasta Nights; (click on images to see larger views and more photos)

Way back in April (really?? How can April be so long ago already?), when we feasted on beautiful freshly harvested fiddleheads, we had a few fiddleheads left over (uncooked, of course). Not quite enough to serve on their own, but definitely enough to augment some broccoli in pasta. (continue reading…)