Sunday Menu Planning

 The husband and I just got back from grocery shopping.  I’m not an Easter or Jesus-y person so I really didn’t plan on making an Easter dinner, per se, or doing anything special, but old habits die hard and I remember my mom always making an Easter dinner for us, so I caved and bought a whole chicken.

So, along with a roasted chicken, I will also make:

Swiss Chard and Caramelized Onion Tacos

Red Lentil Hummus

Farro Salad with Roasted Mushrooms and Parmesan

I’m thinking I will make the taco filling and stick it in the fridge for later in the week.  It looks like a super easy and delicious vegetarian recipe–and I’m sure it will reheat nicely.  We bought beets from the Saturday Market, and Jeff’s friend gave us some red chard, so I will mix the beet greens and chard for this dish.

The red lentil hummus will be good for an easy and light weeknight meal.  We picked up some pita and fresh vegetables to go along with it.

Lastly, the farro salad sounds like it will accompany my chicken well.  Except, I couldn’t find farro at the MoC, so I bought some wild rice instead.  I bought some mushrooms (shiitake, maitake, and lion’s mane) at the market yesterday, too, so I will use those and make the salad with rice.

Let’s see…anything else?  I also have some leeks and the beet root in the fridge that I will need to use as well.  The leeks would go good with the chicken and the beets can be roasted in the oven, too.

Stay tuned for pictures and the process later today.

Damn you, Safeway Organic Tomato Sauce

Sausage and Oyster Mushroom Tomato Sauce

• 3 links Italian sausage (one hot, two sweet)
• Oyster mushrooms
• One onion
• Tomato product (sauce, crushed, etc.) from hell: a salty, salty hell (15% Daily Recommended Value of sodium)
• dried basil and oregano
• Grateful feelings because you forgot to salt the sauce as you were making it
• Wine and Sugar to counteract the terrible salt bomb that is Safeway Organic Tomato Sauce
• Frowns and frustrated sighs
• Wine to drink

I will make polenta as soon as I get over my salt frustration.  

In other news: we planted beets and lettuce today.

And we found a millipede in our apartment.  

It’s been an eventful day.  

There isn’t enough hummus in your life

Hummus: The Rap

I never liked hummus until I made it myself.  Most brands of store-bought hummus are gritty, chemical-y, sour, or bitter.  But I bought it time and time again, slathered it on freshly toasted pita, hoping that one day, I would find a brand that didn’t taste terrible.

When we moved to Oregon, I noticed something strange.  At every potluck we have ever attended, there were multiple types of hummus brought to the party.  Multiple.  Some store-bought, some homemade.  Oregonians love their hummus.

With the intention of fitting into our new culinary culture and finding something easy, nourishing, and vegetarian to eat for dinner this summer, my husband and I ended up making and eating hummus homemade nearly every night of the week.

It became an obsession:  I began googling hummus recipes, always searching for the perfect recipe.  It was the ideal summer food: no cooking required, cool, creamy, easy.

I was so very diligent in my search. Some would say monomaniacal.  I never found the perfect recipe, but my husband created his own and it was our go-to recipe when we were too afraid to try the weird ones I had been unearthing.

His recipe included: 2 cans of beans (garbanzo, cannellini, red kidney, etc.), a rounded tsp. of sunflower seed butter, 1-2 cloves of garlic (crushed), salt and pepper to taste, the juice of one small lemon, and enough olive oil to lubricate the blending process.

We made so much hummus this summer that we broke our brand new blender.  We bought it in May and it was toast by August.

Here is a list of the strangest and most delicious recipes we came across:

red lentil hummus

 

cilantro lime hummus

 

yellow curry and butternut squash hummus

 

white bean and roasted eggplant hummus

 

beet hummus