We interrupt our regular dinner announcement to bring you these deliciously salty, spicy, munchable roasted chickpeas, which ruined our appetites for dinner anyway. I tweeted out a picture of these this afternoon, as I prepared to have four kids descend on my kitchen to taste test bean recipes for an upcoming Parents Canada spread. The immediate twitter flurry of recipe requests that ensued suggested that perhaps some of you may be interested in knowing how to roast a chickpea.
It should be a standard formula in any kitchen, I think. Especially after watching how kids devour them. If you’re looking for something salty and snackable, these beat chips all the way to the curb. Protein, fibre, they’ve got it all-and good taste, to boot. I’ll refrain from any reference to safe snacking.
Roasting chickpeas is like roasting anything else: the drier they are going in, the crispier they’ll be coming out. Open a large (19 oz.) can (or two), rinse and drain them well, and spread them out on a rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with canola or olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and any other seasonings you like – cumin and paprika (sweet or smoked) are good, or curry powder, or any spice mix you fancy. Roll them around to coat them more or less, and rast them at 400°F for 20-30 minutes, giving them a poke around once or twice, until golden and sizzling and crispy. They do tend to get paper towely after a couple hours, so serve them right away. Divine.
January 08 2012 | appetizers and beans and vegetarian | 11 Comments »
I am rather tardy in getting this to you. It’s something I made for the grand opening of my neighbour’s new shop, Reworks, a completely dreamy store in Inglewood that she talked about for ages and then actually went ahead and opened! I mean, I know people who talk about wanting to open up their own little store. Solita went ahead and did it! Huge kudos.
And so to help celebrate I said I’d take care of the food, and this was on the menu. I got it into my head that roasted chickpeas are fantastic, they could only make hummus more so, right? It was pretty damn tasty, and a little rougher around the edges than the norm.
I’m posting it now because I’m off in Vancouver flogging beans with Sue (so really, the hummus is timely, no?) and yesterday morning’s CBC show happened to be about hummus. I made a recipe shared by CBC’s fabulous Julie Nesrallah, host of Tempo, who likes to chat about food with me on Twitter and who shared her very own mum’s hummus recipe. You’ll find it on the Eyeopener recipe page. (See the little tab at the top? There.) Thanks for sharing, other Julie with the dreamy voice.
Hummus is crazy versatile. I made batches with roasted beets and pumpkin and tandoori spice. You can add caramelized onions or chopped artichokes, olives and/or feta, or fresh peas or parsley or roasted carrots. Hummus gets on well with everyone and everything.
If you want to hear the CBC story, you can hear it here.
Also? Happy birthday Mike. Sorry you have to feed yourself today.
Roasted Chickpea Hummus
canola or olive oil, for cooking
1 small onion, chopped
1 19 oz (540 mL) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
2 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. cumin
1-2 big garlic cloves
juice of a lemon (2-3 Tbsp)
a big spoonful of tahini
a drizzle of sesame oil if you like
a glug of olive oil
a big spoonful of plain yogurt (Greek-style if you have it)
a big pinch of salt
In a large, heavy skillet heat a generous drizzle of oil over medium-high heat. Saute the onion and chickpeas for 5-8 minutes, until the onions are soft and the chickpeas are turning golden. Add the chili powder and cumin. If you want to take the edge off the garlic, add that too and cook for a minute or two.
October 26 2011 | appetizers | 7 Comments »
Two. Maybe three? Four? I can’t remember as far back as Friday.
There were artichoke dip poppers and potato croquettes, and Brussels sprouts (BRUSSELS! Not brussel sprouts. Ahem.) with bacon and candied pecans, and braised red cabbage, smashed potatoes, roasted squash and winter veg and cranberries and plums, and yes a turkey, a turducken and four pies. Five, if you count tonight’s, which was actually a tarte tatin.
I’m not sure where to start.
The poppers? That’s where we started on Saturday, so i’s as good a place as any. I had them at the Jasper Park Lodge last weekend, and swore to make them as soon as possible. (Or as soon as I had people over on whom to pawn them off. Speaking of the JPL, I’ll be at Christmas in November at this time next month! With Michael Smith and Anna Olson! It’s a ton of fun! Who’s coming?)
So it works like this: you take leftover artichoke dip – any kind, really, provided it’s baked and then cooled (read: congealed) so you can roll it into little balls. (Don’t worry about them being perfectly firm; prepare to get messy.) If you’re anything like me, you’ll have to bake a dip expressly for this purpose, because leftover + artichoke dip don’t go in the same sentence around here. If you are like me you’ll eat all the crispy cheese off the top, thinking it won’t matter in the poppers anyway.
You roll them in flour, then egg, then Panko, then send them for a swim in a shallow pot of oil. They get all crisp and golden on the outside, with gooey artichoke dip on the inside. Oh yes.
Here’s a baked artichoke dip recipe, if you need one:
Baked Spinach & Artichoke Dip
If you don’t like your dip chunky, put everything in the food processor and pulse it until it’s as smooth as you like.
1 14 oz. can artichoke hearts, drained and finely chopped
1 package frozen chopped spinach, thawed
1/2 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
1 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese (regular or light – not fat free)
1/4 cup mayo
1/4-1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
1 garlic clove, finely crushed
salt & pepper
grated Parmesan or mozzarella, for sprinkling on top
Preheat oven to 350F.
Pulse the artichoke hearts and spinach with the sour cream or yogurt in a food processor until roughly chopped and blended. In a bowl, mash together the cream cheese, mayo, Parmesan cheese, garlic and salt and pepper; stir in the artichoke-spinach mixture and spread in a shallow baking dish. Sprinkle with cheese and bake until heated through and bubbly, about 25 minutes. Serve warm with tortilla chips or sliced soft, crusty baguette. Or refrigerate until firm to make dip poppers.
To make dip poppers: chill the baked and cooled dip overnight, or up to a few days. Heat a couple inches of canola oil in a pot set over medium-high heat and roll the chilled dip into walnut-sized balls. While your canola oil is heating in a heavy skillet or shallow pot (enough to come almost halfway up the side of the balls) beat an egg in a shallow bowl, and some Panko (crispy Japanese breadcrumbs) or dry breadcrumbs in another bowl and a bit of flour in a third.
When the oil is hot but not smoking (it should sizzle around a bit of bread dropped in), dredge the balls of dip first in flour, then in egg and Panko, and gently drop them a few at a time into the oil. (Don’t crowd the pan, or it will cool the oil down too much.) Cook until golden on one side, then flip and cook on the other. Transfer with a slotted spoon to a paper towel-lined plate and serve warm.
It turned out to be the same technique as the potato croquettes my Aunt Chris, who came to visit from Milwaukee and whom I haven’t seen since I was about 10, made for turkey dinner with the family. She makes them out of potatoes mashed with egg yolk and salt, and rolls them – shaped like a double-long tater tot – in flour, then beaten egg white and dry breadcrumbs.
She tests to see if the oil is hot enough with the handle of a wooden spoon. She says she learned it from Rachel Ray. The oil is supposed to bubble around the handle – I do this with a bit of bread. You need some moisture in there.
We had two great birds this weekend – my Mom roasted a free range turkey (below) from Winter’s out in Dalemead. I tweeted photos of it as it emerged from the oven, which prompted a barrage of questions about how to get it to look like that. Because I didn’t think tweeting out my mom’s phone number was a good idea, I posted some turkey roasting advice – mine along with the good folks at Winter’s Turkeys – if anyone is having turkey trouble.
On Saturday I cooked a locally made turducken from Calgary Co-op – turkey stuffed with duck stuffed with Spolumbo’s sausage. The cooking instructions specified a long cooking time at very low heat (225F?), and so I thought why not do it in the CrockPot? Turduckens tend to be smaller than regular turkeys – or they should be, since they are solid meat. With no carcass or cavity, they’re heavier and feed more than a regular turkey of the same size. Bonus: are they ever easy to carve! Nip off the legs and slice ‘er up like a meatloaf. Beauty,
The turducken tucked perfectly into a 6 qt oval slow cooker – I didn’t add stock or anything – the juices are contained and enough – and it generously freed up the oven to bake things like pies.
But chickens and turkeys done in the slow cooker aint pretty; A quick turn in a hot oven crisped up the skin nicely. Not the best photo – it was dark by the time we ate – but you get the gist.
And yes, more pie! Apple-pear, maple pecan, a sort of new version of cherpumple (more on that later) and Sue’s plum pie, from her very first blog post. Welcome to the inter-web Sue!
I didn’t cram the plums in as neatly – nor as tightly – as she did, partly because I was running out of time, and partly because I didn’t have quite enough plums. (I counted the pits – there were 30.) It still looked fab, and didn’t overflow, as Sue’s did (not that there’s anything wrong with that) – which could be due to the fact that I used a shallow quiche dish instead. The problem with tart pans that have removable bottoms? Whenever I go to use them their bottoms have been removed.
Many dinners, even more desserts. I’ll catch you up on the rest soon.
October 10 2011 | appetizers | 14 Comments »
If there is one thing I have an abundance of, it’s tomatoes. Cherry, mostly. Between my back yard, my sister’s front yard and the market, there are a ton lazing around my countertop, attracting fruit flies.
And so it was timely when one of you (Sarah!) emailed to say OMG I JUST HAD THE MOST AMAZING THING AT A PARTY! BLOODY MARY CHERRY TOMATOES WITH MARGARITA DIPPING SALT! And because I myself am no stranger to taking the spot right next to the most delicious thing at a party, I thought I’d give these a go. (Warning: you’ll need at least a few days to let these sit and get down with their bad boozy selves in the fridge.)
So what you do is make this divine brine by first pureeing and straining the essence of big, juicy beefsteak tomatoes. They will be painful to whiz it up, unless you really have a lot of them, but totally worth it. You mix them with vodka and tequila and onion and lemon and Worcestershire to make a bloody good Mary brine.
Then poke a bunch of cherry tomatoes all over with a bamboo skewer. Don’t worry, they won’t fall apart. Honest.
Put the tomatoes and the brine in a big jar and let them sit for at least 3 days. Then mix up some margarita dipping salt -good coarse salt and lime zest- and bring the jar to a party. You will have to demonstrate what to do – dip A into B – or as Sarah put it, “dip the little boozy bombs into this salt/lime grit mixture – like a healthy margarita!” Your friends will get the hang of it. They may also get a little tipsy.
Thanks Sarah! (Who also, by the way, said she makes apricot jam and substitutes Captain Morgan’s for the lemon juice. Sounds like another post!)
Bloody Mary Cherry Tomatoes with Margarita Dipping Salt
from O, the Oprah magazine, via Delish
4 cups cherry tomatoes
2 large regular tomatoes
1 large onion, chopped
1 Tbsp kosher salt
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup tequila
1/2 cup vodka
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2-3 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp Tabasco sauce, or to taste
Margarita Dipping Salt:
1/4 cup good quality flaky sea salt
zest of a lime
1/4 tsp white pepper
With a wooden or metal skewer, stab each tomato ten times; place in a glass bowl.
Puree the tomatoes, onions and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pour it into a fine sieve set over a bowl and push on the solids, getting out as much of the liquid as possible. Discard the solids (or save them for soup!). Add the zest and juice of the lemons, along with everything else (except the margarita salt) to the tomato juice. Pour the mixture over the cherry tomatoes and refrigerate for up to a week, but at least 3 days.
To serve, spear each tomato with a toothpick or wooden skewer and set in a shallow bowl with some of the liquid (spears up so they don’t get wet!). Serve with margarita salt for dipping.
October 04 2011 | appetizers | 5 Comments »
Another delicious use for those coronation/concord grapes. An accessory to them, really.
We’re heading up to Jasper for the weekend, and there’s so much to catch you up on from this week, and last weekend still, but there are too many photos to go through and pack at the same time. So I leave you with these buttery, blue cheesey shortbreads that you can make ahead and keep in the fridge or freezer for such time when you need to slice and bake up a little somthething fancy-ish and delicious. There will be plenty of opportunities in the next few months.
It never hurts to get a little something stashed away now. Unless you’re planning on freezing balls of chocolate chip cookie dough to get ahead of the game – which may be a bad idea for those who, like me, adore frozen balls of chocolate chip cookie dough.
These are perfect – and super easy to stir together – if you have to bring something somewhere, or if you’re planning a little wine & cheese this weekend. (Even if it’s alone, on the couch, in your slippers. Ahh.)
Pecan & Blue Cheese Shortbread
1/2 cup butter, at room temp
1 cup crumbled blue cheese
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans or walnuts
Beat the butter and blue cheese until blended (don’t worry about lumps of cheese); add the flour and pecans or walnuts. Shape into a log, wrap in parchment or plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm or freeze for up to 6 months.
To bake, slice 1/4-inch thick and bake on an ungreased baking sheet at 350°F for 10 minutes, or until pale golden around the edges. Makes about 2 dozen.
September 30 2011 | appetizers | 14 Comments »
