Sabra-Similar Hummus Recipe

I hate those posts that give you a lot of background and photos before finally giving the recipe, so I'm going to do it my way because it's my blog.  :)   I will be putting lots of tips under the recipe, so please give them a read before making the hummus.  If you like it and come get the recipe again then you can skip all the stuff you've already read.

Oh - I'm a jewelry designer, not a chef, so you'll have to figure out serving size, number of servings, calories, and all that stuff yourself. So sorry!

Sabra-Similar Hummus

• 2 cans chickpeas, drained, reserving the juice
• 1 1/2 tsp coarse sea salt
• 1 tsp sour salt (citric acid)
• 2 tsp garlic, minced
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 6 Tbsp tahini
• 6 Tbsp olive oil
• 1/3 - 1/2 cup reserved chickpea juice

Put everything in a food processor and run on high for 7 minutes or so.  If it's too thick, add a bit more reserved chickpea juice and run until blended.  Make a note of how much you used for next time.  Transfer to a covered container and refrigerate.

Eat with pita chips, raw vegetables, your fingers... whatever tickles your fancy.

In full disclosure, this recipe is a modification of the Copy Cat Sabra Classic Hummus recipe from the SparkRecipes website.  That one has white pepper, and since I hate pepper, I left it out.  I also modified it to be a double batch and to tweak some of the ingredients to fit what we like for taste and consistency.

Tips:

• This makes a double batch.   I figure that if you're going to take the time to gather all the ingredients and run a noisy, messy appliance that freaks the cats out, you might as well make enough to last a while.  You could also share it with a friend or take some to a party.
   
• If you have an Aldi or other discount grocery store near you, I recommend getting some of the ingredients there to save money.  If you're familiar with Aldi brands, you'll see that I got the chickpeas, olive oil, and minced garlic there.  The pita chips also came from there, saving me at least 70 cents a bag, and they taste better than other brands I've tried.
   
• If you put the ingredients in the food processor in the order listed, you won't have to clean the measuring spoons between ingredients.  At the most, you may have to wipe the sour salt off of the teaspoon.  You're welcome.
   
• You could probably substitute regular salt for the coarse sea salt, but I'd probably use a bit less.  We had the sea salt in the house already, so I decided to use it.
   
• The ingredient that makes the hummus tangy is sour salt, which is also called citric acid.  Lemon juice alone won't do it.  I couldn't find it in our grocery store, so I ordered it from Amazon:
  
  
  There are a lot of other options on Amazon, but this one will last a very long time.  One teaspoon makes the hummus plenty tangy.  If you like it less tangy, use less sour salt.  Add more if you want your cheeks to pucker and your eyes to cross.  Either way, make a note of how much you used for next time.
   
• You may have noticed in the above picture that I used purchased lemon juice instead of juicing my own lemon.
  
  
  
  
  I was using fresh lemons, but at 50-75 cents apiece, it was getting pricey.  I wasn't making hummus often enough to use all the juice, and it was going bad (or I was getting anxious that it had gone bad).  This little lemon was on sale for 99 cents, so I got that instead.  It seems to work just fine, and I don't feel too bad for cheating.
  
  If you are going to use the real thing, use a room-temperature lemon and roll it around on the counter, pushing down as you roll.  You'll get more juice.  There will be some oil released from the lemon, so do it on a paper towel.  If you're smarter than I am, you'll freeze the leftover juice in 2 teaspoon portions for use in future recipes.
   
• Have a few paper towels handy and put one or two more down before you get started.  The tahini is very gloppy and gets all over everything.  Learn from my mistakes.  The first time I made hummus I was surprised I didn't get any tahini on the cats, that's how messy I was.
   
• What's tahini, you ask?  It's a sesame paste.  You can find it in the Middle Eastern section of grocery stores, but I found this on Amazon that was cheaper per unit than my grocery store and will last for a number of batches:
  
   

• Stir the tahini well before adding it to the food processor because it separates.  I use a non-measuring tablespoon for stirring and pushing the tahini off of the measuring tablespoon into the food processor.
   
• Rinse things right after you're done using them, because the tahini and the hummus are rather sticky and will come off much more easily if rinsed immediately.  Use a sprayer if you have it.  While you're at it, you might as well wash them.  Get it over with.
   
• For this batch I used about 1/4 cup of reserved juice.  It is a little thick, I think, but it tastes just fine.  I recommend using at least 1/3 cup, but 1/2 cup is probably the right amount.  The recipe I started with uses 1/2 cup per one can of chickpeas, but that makes it very thin.  Feel free to fiddle with the measurements to get the consistency you want.
   
• The hummus will be warm after running the food processor.  Don't let that stop you from taste testing it with a pita chip or three.  You can evaluate the consistency and taste and make adjustments before washing the equipment.

• To give you an idea of how much this makes, this container is supposedly five cups, and it seems to be more than half filled.  I'm going to estimate 3.5 cups.  Again, jewelry designer, not chef.  If anyone wants to be industrious and measure it, let me know what you find out, and I'll gladly update this post.
  
  Update: Since I'm making hummus a lot now, I decided to upgrade to a dedicated hummus bowl that looks a lot nicer than a ratty plastic container.  I got a 4 cup TrueSeal glass bowl from the Container Store (this link on their website is for all the sizes - the bowls are very nice), and the hummus fills it to the top, so this recipe makes 4 cups.  That, my dears, is how a jewelry designer does math, ignoring her math minor, computer major, and years as a programmer.  :D

I hope you enjoy this recipe!  If you try it, please leave me a comment on this post with what you think (good or bad - we can't all like the same things).  If you have any further tips, I'd love to hear those, too.

The next post will be back to my usual topics.  I'm working on a new bezel technique, and once I've perfected it, I'll post about it.  I also have plans to post instructions for a necklace made with all that political junk mail we get before elections.  I also have some new tools that need reviewing.  Stay tuned!

Recipe scrapbook page - Chicken in Creamy Pan Sauce

I've blogged before about scrapping family recipes, although it seems I only posted about our German potato salad in More vinegar!  In that post I explain why I think scrapping family recipes is so important, what to keep in mind while scrapping (showing before and after pictures, using your own or a relative's handwriting, and the like), and how important bacon is.  If you haven't read that post (or if you'd like a refresher on all of the above), click here.  I seemed to have been particularly witty that day, so that's worth checking it out if nothing else.

If you're a frequent reader of my blog (or even a pop-in-here-and-there reader), you know that jewelry designing and my business has been my main focus the last few years.  I haven't done any scrapbooking at all, and the events have been piling up.  We're about to go on vacation, so there will be a whole other book that will need to be done.  Steve keeps making comments like, "if we ever scrap again," which upsets me, but I know he's right.  Scrapping means that SO much has to be pulled out, and I have to remember where this punch or that embellishment is (or even if I have any appropriate embellishments).

With beads it seems so much easier.  I typically buy everything I need for a project at the same time, pull anything else out from my extremely organized seed bead center, put it in a pile on my desk or in a baggie, and there it sits until I'm ready to start on it.  I only need a small area on my desk to work, or if I'm going somewhere else to bead, I throw the baggie or pile of bead tubes in my extremely organized bead Caboodle (which can be seen in that same post, and which everyone calls my "magic box").  That's it!  No muss, no fuss.

So Steve has decided to take matters in his own very capable hands.  He has scrapped before, and not just gift albums for new babies (the most recent one can be seen here).

One of our favorite dinners is Kraft's Chicken in Creamy Pan Sauce, although we like calling it "Chicken in CREEPY Pan Sauce" or just "Creepy Chicken".  We originally got the recipe from their website and printed it out.  We always have it with cherry/grape tomatoes and basil on top, and it's so good.  After making it dozens of times, the page was grease-spotted and slightly translucent.  Instead of printing out another one, Steve thought it was time it was scrapped - scrapbooked, that is.

He took pictures of each of the steps, including...

gathering all the ingredients together:

frying the chicken:

cutting the tomatoes and basil:

and plating:

That looks so tasty!  There's more sauce that goes on that, but you get the idea.

With a minimum of "Where's this?  Where's that?  What embellishments do you have?" Steve set up shop at the kitchen table and made a very cute set of scrapbook pages:

You can see he separated the steps out in text and pictures, and he split the title across both pages like I did in the "More Vinegar!" page.  I like that he hand-drew the letters - it looks different from other pages we've done.

If you're worried about the pages getting messed up in the cooking process, don't.  The pages are in protectors in an album, and the album is always kept away from the stove.

Here's the official recipe again:  Chicken in Creamy Pan Sauce.  If you'd like to see my Pinterest board of favorite recipes, you can find that here, or you can follow all of my boards (which includes pins of my blog posts as well as various craft and non-craft things I've found) here.  If you follow me, I'll follow you!

Post a comment with your favorite online recipes (with links to the page if you can) here.  We're always looking to try new things.  I don't like peppers or spicy food, though, but post those recipes anyway so others can try them out.  Who knows?  Your recipe could become one of our favorites, and when that page becomes translucent, we'll scrap that one, too!

Using scrapbooking tools to solve everyday problems

Last night was the Loose Bead Society's annual holiday party.  A bunch of us brought cookies (or fudge or whatever) to share.  It's always nice to see and taste things that I wouldn't normally make.  Someone brought Pizzelles - "Italian waffle cookies".  I like them because they're not as rich as other cookies and because they're very pretty.

I brought cornflake cookies.  They have marshmallows, butter, cornflakes (obviously), and green food coloring.  I don't know where we got the recipe from, but I remember eating them when I was little a long, long time ago.  Not only are they delicious, but they make your tongue green.  I'd say something about other things turning green, but I don't want to get crude.
 

The best way to store and transport cookies is in a cookie tin, right?  What I've always hated about tins is that you need to line them with wax (or parchment) paper.  For cookies that stick together (like the cornflake cookies), it's best to stick paper between layers.  The tins are nearly always round, and the papers are always square.  That means you have a bunch of paper crowding around the edges taking up valuable cookie space.

Remember that cutting board I used when I made my duct tape purse last week?  That was from my "Curvy Cutter" circle/oval cutting set.  Since I'm a procrastinator, I hadn't put it all away yet.  I decided to try cutting the wax paper with the circle cutter, and it worked!

That got me thinking of all of those commercials where they have the perfect solution to an everyday problem, so I made my own little commercial:

I have to tell you - I recorded the video once (hence the bit of stuttering at the end) and spent 2-3 hours getting it edited and in a format I could put on the blog.  I really should have quit, but I was bound and determined to get it done exactly the way I wanted it to be done.  My ingenuity and "there's more than one way to skin a cat" (catfish, not kitty cat, of course) attitude came through again, and I was successful!  I hope everyone can view it okay.

For those of you who have never heard my voice - that's not how I normally talk.  That's my "perfect solution" commercial voice.  I probably am normally that nasally, though.

To sum up what's on the video:

• I used the Curvy Cutter template to figure out what size I needed to cut
  
  
  
  
  
• I adjusted the blade tool to the right setting (the widest in this case) and set the cutter in the right track of the cutter tool (the second track)
   
  
  
  
• I moved the blade tool around the track to cut the wax paper
   
  
• I put the circle of wax paper in the tin (yes, I know this step is obvious, but by now you all know how thorough I am)
   
  

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make a large enough circle for my large tin.  I just did a search to see if there were any larger Curvy Cutters, and I found that they've discontinued the product.  I guess I've had mine a really long time, huh?  I wonder if I'll be able to find a replacement blade if I need it.

I did see that Martha Stewart Crafts has a few circle cutters, and I bet they would work just as well.  The small one cuts from 1" to 5 7/8" in 1/16" increments, and the large one cuts from 4" to 12" in 1/8" increments.

Now, I'm not advocating buying a circle cutter (or two) just for cutting wax paper to line your cookie tins, but if you're a scrapper who wants to expand the uses of your tools, this is one way you can do just that.  I'm sure there are other non-scrapping uses for circle cutters, but, frankly, the video editing has used up all of my ingenuity brain cells for the night.

Do you have any non-scrapping uses for circle cutters or other scrapping tools?  E-mail me at traci@creative-pursuits.biz and let me know!

If you've been hoping that I'd share the recipe for those tasty, tasty cookies, here you go:

Cornflake Cookies

1 stick of butter
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
30 large marshmallows
3 cups cornflakes
1 teaspoon green food coloring
Red sugar

Melt marshmallows and butter in a double boiler.  Add vanilla and food coloring.  Stir in cornflakes - carefully - and drop in tablespoon-sized blobs on wax paper.   Sprinkle with red sugar.  Wait to cool.  Store in the refrigerator.

The side benefit for me posting the recipe here is that if I lose it (again), I won't have to ask my mother to send it to me (for the 20th time).

More vinegar!

Today Steve and I were busy with last minute preparations for his parents to arrive.  The day went something like this:

"What else needs to be done?"

"De-furring (4 cats create a LOT of fur that gets deposited on EVERYTHING), back bathroom, floor, litter...."

"Oh, crap!  Look at _____.  That needs to be cleaned!"

Along with all of this I needed to make German potato salad for tomorrow.  My mother and stepfather are coming to see Steve's parents, and Steve requested the potato salad.  Here's how the conversation with my mother went:

"So, what can we bring?"

"German potato salad?"

":::groan:::"

"Okay - how about deviled eggs and corn on the cob?"

":::cheerful-acceptance-of-less-arduous-task:::"

I had already come to peace with making it myself, but it was worth a shot!

(note, greater than and less than signs are HTML tags and should not be used while emoting groans or cheerful acceptances, even when typing in "Compose" mode)

But, Traci, this is a CRAFT blog.  Sure, you go off on tangents every once in a while, but really, you need to tie this into crafting somehow.

Alrighty, how about scrapbook pages?

You can click on the pictures to make them bigger.  I didn't use the Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner for these pages because I think the brads I'm using for the bullet points are too bulky.  The resultant scan would probably be blurry.  Besides, Pixel is on my desk, and I don't have the space to scan.  Also besides, it's been a long day, and I wanted to do something quick.

I love making pages for family recipes.  First of all, this is a great way to keep the family recipes safe, especially those that get plastered all over a blog.  Second, by taking pictures of the process, it can help people who haven't made the recipe before figure out what needs to be done.  In this case it's not essential, but there are a few steps in the German wedding soup that benefit from pictures.  Third, it really makes you stop and think about what you're doing if you're taking process shots while cooking.  If you can find old pictures of family members eating the dish, that ties the whole thing back to what's really important - your family.

Since those pictures are pretty small, let's blow a few sections up for further scrutiny:

• Before-during-after.  This is a quick way to show how to do something.  Yeah, I could have skipped the first two pictures, but how else would you be impressed with the process of peeling a mountain of HOT potatoes then slicing them?
  
  Steve:  "But why do you peel them after boiling?  Wouldn't it be easier to peel them before?"
  
  Traci, Traci's Mom, Traci's Omi, and all other women before her:  "This is how it's done."

• Split the title across the pages.  This helps tie the two pages together.  Granted, it doesn't look all that good separated like this, and in an album the pages will never be RIGHT next to each other, but it does help draw the eye.  Also, if you create a vague title like mine, people will ask you what the food is.  Honestly didn't occur to me to have to name the thing.  It's obviously German potato salad.  Duh (for someone who has eaten it her whole life).

• Write directly on the pictures.  Do not use a regular pen for this.  Use a Slick Writer pen or photo marker or something that is specially designed for glossy surfaces.  Otherwise you'll have a smeary mess on your hands.  Now everyone can see "The Drama of Potato Slices" and how beautiful my hard boiled eggs were that day.  Not so my eggs since I moved into this house with its electric stove.  I've looked online for help, but no matter what I do, I'm having a really hard time getting the shells off the eggs without taking a layer of whites off as well.
  
  I did grab the Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner for these pictures and the rest on this page - crops from the main pictures were far too blurry.

• Use brads for bullet points.  See - the bulkiness of the brads made that part of the page blurry with the scanner.  Anyway - you can see most of my gas-stove egg-boiling process.  For electric stoves, I've been putting the eggs in cold water, bringing the water to a rolling boil, keeping it on the heat for about a minute, then taking it off the heat for about 12 minutes.  Rinse in cold water and swear while peeling.  Anyone have a better way?
  
  Anyway.  If you use brads as bullet points, they help separate the processes as well as being pretty.  I remember that I used all of these brads - 3 square and 2 round - on this recipe.  In case you haven't figured this out from yesterday's post, I really like using things up.
• Use your own (or a relative's) handwriting.  I've mentioned this before (see my blog post from June 28th, 2010), so I won't go into it now.  Yes, you can make mistakes (like I did with "boil" in the upper right of the above picture), but that helps the page have personality.  If you happen to have the recipe written in your grandmother's or mother's or great aunt's handwriting, make a copy of it and USE it.  You'll hear her voice in your head whenever you make the recipe.

And finally...

• Bacon.  You can't go wrong with a picture of sizzling bacon and onions (a German staple).  Seriously, though (not that bacon isn't serious enough), Lazy Scrapper didn't want to mat all the pictures, so I matted two - one on the left (the potato process) and this one.  It's subtle but helps to draw the eye along the page, unless your eye is drawn directly to bacon.

This was supposed to be a quick post.  Hopefully you've gotten some good ideas out of this.  Or, at the very least, I hope you've gotten hungry.

For my non-scrappers:  You don't have to scrap to achieve the same results.  Get an album with sleeves for certain sizes of pictures (usually 4x6).  Take the process shots and put them in the sleeves along with the handwritten recipe.  They actually have recipe books just for this purpose - I've seen them at Archiver's.  Any ready-to-use scrapbook with sleeves will work, though.  The most important thing is to get those recipes down so that future generations will be able to keep your family history alive.

Another tangent - what IS it about cats?

They have to be right in the thick of things, always.  I'm in the middle of a project, and Simoon just has to be on top of it.  Even when there's more than enough empty desk space, she decides to relax by balancing on papers, pens, and ink pads while pushing other things off of the desk.  She's pushed a tasty Parmesan crusted stuffed chicken recipe off of my desk twice this week!  (If you make this recipe, I would put the chicken under the broiler for a few minutes to brown the parmesan some.)  Right before the following picture was taken, she knocked off a set of rubber stamps.  She looks pretty comfy, eh?

Look at that huge cat-sized open space on the desk!

Speaking of tasty new chicken recipes from the Kraft Foods website, we tried the Chicken in Creamy Pan Sauce tonight.  Next time, we're doubling the sauce and serving it with egg noodles.  Very tasty!

It's not just when I'm crafting that the cats are pests.  Earlier this week we had our oldest cat, Miss Katy, groomed.  Her long fur was turning into huge clumps of felt again.  Steve could not leave the couch that night - she was on him like white on rice.  He made the best of it by reading.... until:

Pixel makes a better door than a window.  At least he settled down:

Look at our poor Katy!  I hate that they gave her a lion cut.  I know it's best for her, but she looks so sad!  Steve noted today that Katy has "Flashdance" legwarmers, and he made her do the "Maniac" dance.  She was not amused.

Surprisingly, Fe (our youngest kitty) hasn't been a pest lately... Oh, wait, that's right.  She knocked over a basket in the kitchen which nearly landed Steve's iPod in the cats' water.

Now I know there are tons of crafters out there with cats... what antics have they been up to?  Leave me comments, please!  (I'll be happy with dog stories, too!)