Voodoolily's Snacktastic Recipe Thread!!

[MuffinMan]

Grandma's makes a great falafel as well, we have their restaurant here neener neener. I eat a lot of Pita Pal's Spicy Red Pepper but I've never tried to make any myself.

[ghost]

Fucker.  Next time I'm up in Austin we should grab lunch there.  I have to come up every now and again for business stuff.

[Ingmar]

What's the recipe you're using for a starting point?

[ghost]

What's the recipe you're using for a starting point?

I'm not, really.  Most of the ones I've tried haven't lived up to what I'm trying to do.  If Paelos has been to Izmir (which I'm assuming he has) he can tell you that it's different than most other hummuses (the plural of hummus is funny, isn't it?).  I've almost gotten it by adding the chick peas, tahini, lemon, garlic and some yogurt, but it always seems just a bit too lemony or garlicky for me.  If you've got one that you use put it up.  Maybe it will be a nice starting point. 

[Paelos]

I grew up in Dallas from 1986-1999. Izmir was just becoming popular when I was in high school.

One key is they use a ton of garlic. Another is that they use some form of dairy, although I'm not sure what. I believe they roast the garlic, but that's unproven.

[Evildrider]

Have you tried sour cream instead of yogurt? 

or maybe

[Pennilenko]

When I do hummus I bake the garlic with a bit of good olive oil and add roasted red peppers to it. It is so yummy. My wife makes a hummus with avocado that is mind blowing. While I enjoy traditional hummus, I can't resist the urge to add my favorite stuff to it.

P.S. I add the tahini in tiny portions until i have it just right, you can really throw off hummus with the wrong quantity of tahini. Also I have discovered different tahini brands have differences in intensity of taste, I think that might be due to a regional production thing though. Also I sometimes hold out the lemon juice depending on what I am adding to it that differs from a traditional style recipe.

[Ingmar]

I'll have to dig out the recipe (haven't made it in years), but I am a big believer that olive oil is key, if you're not using that maybe that's part of it.

You can also make your own tahini without TOO much effort, by the way. Basically just toast a bunch (like several cups, it takes a lot of them) of sesame seeds in the oven and then blend them with olive oil (or another oil if you don't believe in the One True Oil) in a blender/food processor. Might yield better results than using a bottled one.

[Viin]

I was going to post this under Useless Convo, but figured a resurrected thread is even better! (Not hummus related .. yet).

My wife found a site that gives you a new meal plan every week, with a shopping list for ingredients for the weekend Whole Foods/supermarket run.

http://www.thefresh20.com/

We do the vegetarian menu (since my wife won't eat pork or beef or chicken or whatever .. crazy). This week we had a Quinoa Egg Salad with grilled Peaches (yummy), Peanut Noodle Salad with rice noodles (good), Penne and Cannellini Beans (good).

Since we got sick and tired of trying to figure out something new to make, this is pretty awesome and so far pretty good recipes. Certainly a few things I wouldn't have made if it wasn't handed to me, but they turned out worthwhile!

This week's veggie menu:
Corn and White Bean Chowder
Stuffed Red Peppers
Zucchini Black Bean Tacos
(plus 2 others I will probably skip)

[Sky]

I've been making guacamole. I grew to love it in southern cali and the lack of good options meant I kind of stopped eating it when I moved back east. Subway's been running those avocado promotions, so I had some and as with most food, it made me want to make some decent stuff.

Mine is just some diced avocado, a bit of sautéed minced onion and garlic and some squeezed lime juice, s&p. So damned tasty. The garlic and onion I scoop out of the pan as I'm usually sautéing some garlic/onion/pepper for the dish.

[MuffinMan]

Just made some guac yesterday myself. Tomato, garlic, onion, lime juice, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp cayenne, 1/4 tsp salt. Apply liberally directly to face and mouth.

[ghost]

I've got to have some tomatoes in there, for my tastes.  I also have a pretty strong aversion to raw onions, so maybe I would like the sauteed ones.  That's a good idea to try because the wife likes them, so maybe we can compromise. 

[Nevermore]

The best therapy for raw onion aversion is to get real Vidalias.

For guacamole, if I have good avocados with nice texture and flavor I just do a quick and dirty chunky mash of the avocados, some salt and pepper, and a bit of rice wine vinegar.  I tried the rice vinegar once when I was out of limes and I actually prefer it now when using good avocados.  The more mild acid seems to suit those.  If I were using standard local crappy avocados I'd use the lime and fortify it with more spices, onions, garlic, tomatoes and the like.

[NowhereMan]

I made some cooked tomato salsa on the weekend, stuck a load of cherry tomatoes with some thyme sprigs and whole garlic cloves into a hot oven until they started to brown. Meanwhile I finely diced a bit of onion and green bell pepper along with three bird's eye chillies and marinated them in some lime juice, salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce. Chopped a little bit of fresh tomato in as well. When the tomatoes were roasted I just popped the garlic out of their skins and tossed the whole lot together in a small bowl, then went at it a bit with a pestle to break stuff up.

The result is pretty tasty, I like the effect of the browned tomato skin in it but there's really way too much liquid, I should have added the tomato pulp and reduced the remaining liquid before adding it. I think I might just drain it a bit but I'm reluctant since it's a bit watery but there's a lot of flavour in it. I've been having it for lunch with some slow cooked pulled pork I made in tortillas with a little bit of greek yoghurt, yum.

[Khaldun]

Always save tomato water if  you drain it off--I sometimes seed and drain out a tomato before using it in salsa, but the tomato water can be used for very simple, gentle sauces and other things.

[cmlancas]

Tomato water always strikes me as one of those weird things of nature, like coconut water and the like.

How do I know the difference between this and juice?!?   

[ghost]

Yesterday I made a crockpot chili verde.  It was fucking awesome.

I put 2 jars of green tomatillo based salsa, 2 cans of green enchilada sauce, ~ 2 cups of chicken broth in a crockpot with a pork shoulder and let it simmer all day.  Great stuff. 

Served it over black rice with tortillas. 

[Nebu]

Anyone see this yet?  Wasn't sure if I should put this in the Awesome pictures thread or not...

[MuffinMan]

Be still, my palpitating heart.

[Khaldun]

Wait, ground up bacon? I am the biggest fan of bacon in the world but that seems kind of stupid.

[Evildrider]

Stupid.. or genius!

[ghost]

Ho.  Lee.  Fuck.   

[Ingmar]

That's just kind of weird, since egg on a buger is a New Zealand thing.

[Surlyboi]

Homemade pizza.

Whole wheat dough with garlic and pepper mixed in.

On top, fresh garden tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, garden-grown basil, pepperoncinis and pepperoni.

Pair that with a pureed strawberry and basil cocktail.

[Khaldun]

Made the elaborate all-day ramen broth today. Cook 8qt of water with konbu first (10 min.) then dried shitake mushrooms next (30 min.) then a whole chicken (1 hr.) then 6 lbs. of pork neck bones that have been browned in the oven (6 hrs.), then add some scallions, onion and carrot for about an hour. Finish w/soy sauce, mirin, sake that have been cooked with the chicken bones from step 3.  Pork belly, corn, nori, green beans, scallions, kimpura for toppings, plus noodles of course. Pretty much mind-blowing.

[ghost]

That's just kind of weird, since egg on a buger is a New Zealand thing.

I've had it lots of places in the states.  In my college town there was a little hole in the wall that we used to go to called Spivey's whose special (the Lee Burger) had a fried egg on it. 

[Signe]

They try and put eggs on your burgers or any sort of beef sammich in France, too.  A lot of place in Britain offer eggs on burgers and even on pizza.  I'd rather have my egg on the side, preferably burger-free.  Bacon is nice, though.  :)

[MuffinMan]

Back to our earlier guacamole talk, just squirted Sriracha on the top of mine tonight. Oh my damn.

[Samwise]

That's just kind of weird, since egg on a buger is a New Zealand thing.

There used to be this pub in Alameda called the New Zealander that did this amazing burger with a fried egg and slices of ham, pineapple, and beet, in addition to the standard grilled onion/lettuce/tomato/cheddar.  I miss that place so much.

[Sky]

Our one decent restaurant had a 'truck stop burger' on their seasonal menu a couple years ago, I can still order them because it's common stock ingredients and I know the exec chef. It's a 1/2lb burger with a sandwich pepperoni slice, ham, egg, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle...I think that's it. Haven't had one in a while...

[Ingmar]

That's just kind of weird, since egg on a buger is a New Zealand thing.

There used to be this pub in Alameda called the New Zealander that did this amazing burger with a fried egg and slices of ham, pineapple, and beet, in addition to the standard grilled onion/lettuce/tomato/cheddar.  I miss that place so much.

Yeah we went there a bunch of times with the Proudfts, that place was cool. I always got a meat pie.

[ghost]

Our one decent restaurant had a 'truck stop burger' on their seasonal menu a couple years ago, I can still order them because it's common stock ingredients and I know the exec chef. It's a 1/2lb burger with a sandwich pepperoni slice, ham, egg, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle...I think that's it. Haven't had one in a while...

You can only have a burger like that once in a (long) while or you'll end up in a coffin.

[MuffinMan]

But it has vegetables on it! (I've actually heard this before.)

Made some dulce de leche muffins tonight. Batter could use some sugar but once you hit the dulce de leche in the center you lose all sense of time and space.

[Sky]

Pass the dulce to the left hand side.

[ghost]

I'm making a honeyed leg of lamb in the crockpot today.  If it's any good I'll post the recipe and maybe some pictures.

Edit- 

Okay, so this is what I did:

4 Tbsp honey
1 bottle hard cider
2-3 Tbsp fresh garlic

combined for basting sauce

Take lamb leg and brown on stove in pan with butter.  Throw in crockpot with all the above fixins for about 8 hours or so on low heat.  I put some carrots and mushrooms in about an hour prior to eating.  Served over rice.

I'd give it a "B", but it's possible I don't love lamb all that much.