Hummus with Parsley, Garlic, Tahini, Lemon Juice, Sea Salt
Hummus doesn’t have to be bright green. Indeed, classical hummus is usually tan in color. But when you add a handful of fresh parsley (or basil or scallions), you will have a chickpea paste in a pleasant shade of green.
Ingredients
Note: this recipe creates a small amount – to make more, double, triple or quadruple it.
1/2 cup chickpeas
1-2 small garlic cloves, peeled
1 tsp. sea salt
pepper to taste
1 handful fresh parsley
2 wedges of lemon juice
1 Tbsp. tahini (sesame paste)
1 small piece of wakame seaweed(optional)
Soak the chickpeas for at least four hours or overnight. Cook the chickpeas, covered with water, in a crockpot until tender (a few hours in my crockpot). Optionally, you can add a stamp size piece of seaweed for extra minerals and a bit of flavor. You can also add some sea salt while the chickpeas are cooking (add salt toward the end of the cooking). When the chickpeas are ready, drain the water, reserving a bit in case you want to use it to moisten the hummus. Blend in a food processor the chickpeas, peeled garlic cloves, tahini, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. If you want regular hummus, you are now done. Take the leaves off the stems of the parsley and add the leaves to the hummus, blending them until you have a smooth, green paste. If you would like it to be smoother or softer, add some of the chickpea water. I love a homemade hummus that has the consistency of ice cream.
One of my guests remarked that it looked like wasabi. The homemade green hummus went well with the homemade pita bread that I served at our Chanukah party last night.
lighting a candle at Dunkin Donuts for Chanukah, a Rutgers Hillel event
On Tuesday night, the first night of Chanukah, the daughter, her friend and I wandered over to our local Highland Park Dunkin’ Donuts for a Rutgers Hillel candle lighting. We just went because it was a convenient time while we were waiting for the rest of the family to come home. The guitar playing and singing were quite nice, and thank you to Rabbi Esther Reed of Rutgers Hillel for the role she played in organizing the event. It was a fun way to start Chanukah.
snapdragon leaves in late December 2011 with drops of water
It’s been a while since I’ve done Nature Notes – I could blame both my work load and the gloom of early December darkness, cold and brown. Today it was a tad warmer, and I went outside to photograph some burnt red bald cypress leaves – instead, I found this snapdragon plant with bright green leaves and drops of rain water.
I have an idea for next week’s Nature Notes, but I need your help. Can you tell me which of Michelle’s many topics were your favorite(s) in the past year? Shh… don’t tell Michelle. Oh, is she reading this? Well, anyway, your comments on Best Rambling Woods Nature Topics are requested.
The game of dreidel (yiddish – the Hebrew is sivivon) is associated with Chanukah because when the Assyrian Greeks came to see if the Jews were studying Torah, a practice which was banned, the Jews would take out the spinning top and play that game instead. The four Hebrew letters on the dreidel are Nun, Gimel, Heh and Shin – short for Nes Gadol Hayah Sham (a great miracle happened there). In Israel the dreidel has a Peh instead of the Shin, for Nes Gadol Hayah Po (a great miracle happened here).
There is a game with the dreidel that involves pennies and taking the pot of pennies if you get a gimel, giving it in if you get a shin, half the pot for heh, but it is all luck. My kids just spin them and spin them and spin them. What do you do with your dreidels?
I did the above drawing with black marker, then I colored it in with Photoshop. I promised my daughter she could color in the original with colored pencil. If she does, I will post that version as well.
Radish, Kale, Parsely in watercolor by Leora Wenger, 2011
It is customary to eat foods with oil on Chanukah. However, one is not obliged to eat fried foods on Chanukah. Yes, yes, I will be serving latkes (potato pancakes) as well as sufganiyot (doughnuts, usually jelly doughnuts but we leave out the jelly). For this post, however, we will be creating salad dressing with olive oil. That way, one can fulfill the custom of eating foods with oil in a healthy manner (yes, first cold pressed olive oil, uncooked, is actually good for you). And why do we eat foods with oil on Chanukah? Because of the little vial of oil found in the Temple in the days of the Maccabees – the vial was only supposed to light the menorah for one day, but miraculously, it lasted for a whole eight days (thus, eight days of Chanukah).
So here are some salad dressing ideas:
Olive oil, raw apple cider vinegar, sea salt, turmeric, pepper and garlic powder
Olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper
Ilana-Davita’s Sweet and Tangy Dressing (balsamic vinegar, olive oil, sweet chili sauce, salt and pepper)
Rachel: crushed garlic, dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, dried oregano (if your kids don’t mind “green stuff”) and olive oil
Rachel: lemon juice, cumin, salt and pepper, and olive oil
Olive oil, honey, mustard, a little orange juice and a little vinegar, salt and pepper.
Ilana-Davita: balsamic vinegar, olive oil, soya sauce, lime juice, salt and pepper
Sandy: Cilantro or basil in the blender with vinegar and olive oil.
Get the idea? How do you dress your salad? If you comment and it fits the olive oil category, I’ll add it to the list.
sporting detailed sneakers with bright pink laces in the woods
This week’s Thursday Challenge is “SHOES” (Boots, Sandals, Dress Shoes, Wooden Shoes, Stiletto heals, Horse Shoes,…)
Next Week: LIGHT (Candle, Street, Business, Fireplace, Glitter, Sparkle,…)
And, yes, I did post these Twinkle Toes Skechers sneakers two weeks ago. Déjà vu. I have lots of candle photos from previous years – maybe I will do a Chanukah candle photo essay. We shall see.
lentils in a jar turned upside-down so the water drains
I’ve been enjoying learning how to sprout brown lentils. I’m thinking of sprouting broccoli seeds next.
Equipment
1 mason jar
1 screen lid (I bought this green Sprouting Strainer Lid from Amazon)
Ingredients
1/2 cup brown lentils
1 cup water
Place the lentils in the jar and screw on the screen lid. Let the lentils soak for about 12 hours. After that, drain and rinse out the lentils every 6-8 hours (I confess, I sometimes waited 24 though not on purpose and the lentils were fine). You drain the lentils into the sink and then rinse the lentils. You turn the jar upside down unto a plate and let it drain again. Repeat in about 8 hours. The lentils are ready when they sprout little tails (in about 3 days). You can then store them in the refrigerator. They will last for at least one week.
I covered the lentils with a sock to keep them out of the light. Most of the recipes seemed to suggest this is not necessary, so I left the sock out of the post. Here was one simple post I found that talked about sprouting in general.
Last Sunday my daughter and I went to the dog park in Donaldson Park. She wanted to see the dogs, and I was happy to see the sunset. Donaldson Park is on the other side of Highland Park from where we live, and it is right next to the Raritan River. You can park right near the dog parks.
There is a dog park (a large caged in area) for little dogs and one for big dogs. There were a lot more big dogs. They romp around and play games with each other. My daughter was following the interactions carefully.
I enjoyed the oranges, reds, yellows of the sunset. The steeple you see is across the Raritan River in New Brunswick.
Judaica Gallery, broken window - photo taken December 1, 2011 Where were you in November 1938? Most of us weren’t born yet, but the mother of someone who spoke Tuesday night at Highland Park’s Borough Council meeting was in Vienna and witnessed the real Kristalnacht. The shattering of glass in Jewish storefronts in Highland Park terrified her, and as it did for many of us, the quick actions of the Highland Park police (in conjunction with New Brunswick police and Rutgers police) in arresting the culprit brought relief.
It did have a healing effect, the Borough Council meeting, at least I thought so. Elsie-Foster Dublin, councilwoman, led the meeting, and at one point she talked about how when the African American community had problems, Rabbi Malomet had sent her a helpful email. Now, when the Jewish community was upset by an incident, Rabbi Malomet again sent her a calming email. Several Jewish community members, including Rabbi Luban and Rabbi Kaufman, expressed their thanks to the police department for their swift action. And the police commissioner (who was thrilled with all the praise) was sure to point out that Rabbi Kaminetsky had come by the police department that day to find out how the police were doing (I think he operates as a chaplain for the police). And the meeting wasn’t just about the broken glass incident – one person who lives near Raritan Avenue has a terrible problem with noise and someone else has problems with broken sidewalks. The usual small town fare.
There was someone sitting next to me who appeared to be a journalist, as he was taking copious notes. I didn’t take any – my purpose in writing this post is just to say thank you to those who make this a nice community.
We served corn bread on Thanksgiving, and as I talked about doing in my previous corn bread post, I finally put together the corn bread recipe for preparation and consumption by the general blog public.
Ingredients
Oil to cover the pan
Dry ingredients:
2 cups white flour
1 1/2 cups cornmeal
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
Wet ingredients:
1 cup oat milk (or rice milk or almond milk)
3/4 cup applesauce (you can try a full cup or even more – my previous version of this cake, without measuring applesauce, was moister than this one)
2 eggs
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup sugar (you can add more maple syrup instead, if you want)
Mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl. Mix the wet ones in another bowl. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a pan – I used a tube pan this time, because my last one was quite moist. With 3/4 cup applesauce, a regular baking pan should be fine, though it will probably take longer to bake the middle than the sides. Mix all the ingredients together and pout into the pan. Bake for 30-35 minutes.
Question: is it hard to obtain maple syrup where you live? You might try molasses, but it will then be a different sort of result, darker and with molasses-like flavor.
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Upcoming recipes for this blog – I finally took photos of the sprouting process, so I hope to post about sprouting lentils soon. As Chanukah is coming, I have two diametrically opposed blog post ideas: 1) sufganiyot – doughnuts recipe AND 2) a group post (meaning your participation) about salad dressing with olive oil, for those of us who wish to partake in a food way of the miracle of oil and would prefer not to consume mass quantities of fried food in order to do so.
