I needed hummus in my house today. My two large bags of baby carrots were crying out for something to be dipped in.

I love hummus for many reasons, but first and foremost because it is SO easy to throw together, its high in protein and if you add the right ingredients, it can be high in veggie nutrients too!

Unfortunately, I have to stay away from Tahini(its also really expensive) makes hummus slightly difficult to do well. I have a sister who lived in Jordan for a year; visiting her and eating the real deal really spoiled me! But then I found a recipe on nytimes for YOGURT in hummus. WIN

So. slightly adapted from the nytimes recipe.....

• 1 15 oz can of chickpeas or garbanzo beans, drained (save liquid)
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/2 cup 0% Fat Plain Chobani Yogurt
  
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 handful baby spinach

Crush up the garlic and add it to the blender, along with the chickpeas, yogurt, lemon juice, salt and cumin. Blend until creamy. Add the spinach and blend until it is a uniform lovely green! If it is hard to blend, add a few tablespoons of the chick pea liquid, one at a time, until you get the thickness you like.

The yogurt gives this recipe a beautiful depth, and the spinach adds color, nutrients and offsets the strength of the garlic just a tad.

Eat with carrots, cucumbers, toasted pita...... spoon, fingers.....

No pictures, sorry! Camera is decidedly dead. Ill be making this again though, so Ill snap some next time!

My first 5K and Homemade Tortilla Chips!

So I ran my first 5K today! I finished in 35.00.65, which for a first race, with under two weeks of training(I am admittedly a relatively 'fit' person to begin with) is not to shabby! Im very proud of myself for running the whole way through(with one mini stop to tie my shoe) and finishing with a sprint, and most importantly, cheering on my running buddy and making new running buddy friends!

I started running when I was in high school, officially joining the track team my freshman year, for all the wrong reasons. Given that I was on the team for purely non-athletic reasons, and I was more concerned with dancing, classes, and most importantly(for any teen) my social life.......I learned to HATE running.

I despised it, dreaded every practice, moaned and growned with almost every lap. Running wasnt fun. However, I was pretty athletic, dancing and swimming being my main activities, so I was a relatively sucessful track athlete as well. My event was the High Jump, and I threw Javelin and Shot Put occasionally. I ran a few 200 races, and a few 100 races, but they were never my main focus. High Jump was my passion. I loved it. I gained immense satisfaction from running at just the right speed and angle and tilt to get that perfect plant so my momentum would surge up my body and carry my body, back arched and head back, cresting over the bar and onto the mat on the other side. It felt elegant and powerful at the same time. I think the only reason I ran at all was to stay in good enough shape to be a good high jumper.

With all that being said, I still hated running.

During college, my last year was the most stressful year of my education, and Ive had some duzies. I don't think I am alone in this, and I think it was more the time of life rather than situations that caused the majority of my stress. Transitions are almost always hard, and no matter how stable your life, Senior year of college brings up a host of emotions.

In order to deal with mine, I tried running. It seemed like the most intense workout in the shortest amount of time. I needed a routine that would work out all my stress, while at the same time not eat into my schedule too much.

Runner By Necessity.....

My need to run grew into a desire to run, and slowly, I learned that I could actually have FUN running. It was a magical moment, there were stars and fireworks and all manner of celebratory imagry.....

Which brings us to today!

My first 5k. As soon as I was finished, and the immediate post sprint nausa passed, and I got a sip of water and caught my breath, my first cohereant thought was "Ok, what's NEXT!?!?!?!"




All that running + the impending hurricane about to *probably* knock out our electric motivated me to make my all time favorite carb in the whole world...TORTILLA CHIPS!!!!!

So. A little while back I was pretty obessed with nutrition labels(ok, who am I kidding, I still VERY much am....) and I noticed that 1 serving of Tortilla Chips, depending on the brand, has between 5 and 9 grams of fat in it!
I decided there must be a better option. I prefer fats I can see and touch and taste, like olive oil, avocado, and the like. So I googled my little heart out, and the result is this SUPER simple, VERY cheap, and SPECTACULARLY yummy recipe.

Ingredients:
10 or so Corn Tortillas(DO NOT USE FLOUR, ITS NOT THE SAME!) these cost about 3 bucks for a pack of 30 at Stop and Shop.....talk about a bargain
1 tablespoon or so Olive Oil
Salt to taste
Other Herb to taste

Directions:
-Preheat your oven to 425

-Cut Tortillas into 1/4 pieces, you can do all of them at once if you have a big knife, they cut easily

-Using a pastry brush or paper towel, coat the pan with olive oil(VERY VERY thin layer)
-Place your tortillas on the pan, and lightly brush the tops with EVOO, just enough to moisten them enough so salt will stick.

-Salt to Taste- Some Herbs are ok in the oven, some are not, you will have to experiment. I add my garlic powder after when I want a "fresh" taste, and before when I am craving a little "char"(terrible for my cholesterol...I know I know....)

-Put the pan in the oven for about 10 minutes, but check it often after 7 to make sure your tortillla chips are not burning, as this happens very fast!

-Remove from the oven once the chips have curled up slightly at the edges and are a very light brown. They will be softer if you take them out too early, and crispier if you leave them in longer, but may have a slight "charred" taste to them(which I loooove so it doesn't bother me!)

Here are some images from today's endeavor....only two...sorry!

This is the Before......Chop them up!



And the final product!!! Yum. Its going to be next to impossible to save these for tomorrow...when we might not be able to cook!



Best part? Healthy, known source of fat calories, EVOO, which is good for your heart! Just a little goes quite a long way, so only use a tiny tiny bit, but it browns them nicely and lets the salt stick on just so nice! I toss them with a bit of garlic powder, but I also like taco seasoning, or you could go savory and add thyme, sage, or really, any herb you like! They go SO well with the salsa....I have also had them with vegan spinach and artichoke dip....more on that later though!

Enjoy!!!

Slightly Sweet Swanky Salsa

Salsa Adventure!
I think this is a pretty appropriate inaugural post for this blog, as it was a pretty huge mile stone for my kitchen activities. I made and canned 12 pints of salsa! For those of you who have done this every season, time and time again and could never look at those ball jar caps/tops another minute, this may not seem like a huge accomplishment. However, Ive never canned anything, ever, and paying 5 bucks a pop for a can of salsa made with ingredients from Mexico, California and who knows where just wasn't cutting it for me anymore.
And it just sounded like tons of fun......
So. It began with the veggies.




Then there were more veggies.....




See those peeled, seeded and drained tomatoes? That was all due to my wonderful guy, who will here be named Swanky, because I cant think of anything more original to call him right now, so it will probably change when I do. He helped me peel those tomatoes, and then he seeded them, and drained them for me! Cut my veggie chopping time in half! The Onions(10 cups!) were difficult, as my eyes revolted about half way through.....

NB: when Swanky tells you not to touch your face or eyes, or anything at all for many, many minutes after cutting a jalapeno pepper, even after you've washed your hands(twice!) LISTEN to him. Ouch!



This was the result of of the combination of vinegar, tomato paste, all the veggies and a fair number of spices! Beautiful eh?

And then it simmered.....



and simmered and simmered.

After it was finished, I put it on the back burned, top on, while I ran out to town to meet a fab couple who were selling me a dresser for my new place(for 10 bucks, sweet!) I mention this because I'll probably post about my staining attempt later in the month!

When I got back, dresser safely in the new apartment, the sterilization began. As did the mind numbing fear that I wasn't keeping everything 100% sterile, and would give everyone I love some terrible sickness.

Mind.Numbing.Fear.
So who did I call? My mother of course(real adults know when they need their mothers!)

She completely put my mind at ease! Well, I was still afraid of killing everyone, but decided that as long as I eat a lot of the salsa, Ill know pretty fast if its alright or not!

The sterilizing process took forever because I was using my one big pot to simmer the salsa, so I had to sterilize 17 jars, 2 at a time, almost dropping many of them. I would then freak out that I had contaminated them in some way, and start the boiling time all over again!

(yes, by the way, you are correct in thinking that there is STEAM on my camera lens...what is it they say...if you cant take the heat?)



but finally we got to this point.......



CLEAN!!!! You could do surgery with these jars! (please do not actually attempt that)

So now comes the filling....This went pretty smoothly, a funnel really helps here...



At this point in the adventure, it was about 9pm(notice how dark it is in the picture, I had to start using the flash!), and I needed a little something extra to get me through the boiling process.



After about an hour and a half of boiling boiling boiling.......






TADA!!!!! I was super proud.

Lessons Learned:
Fingertip nerve endings will always grow back, no matter how many times you have to catch a ball jar that has just come out of boiling water.

No matter how hot and sweaty you think you are, it will always get hotter, and sweatier, when canning.

Boyfriends who have 10+ years in the food service industry are huge plus when you need to peel and skin 30 tomatoes.


Thanks guys! Next canning adventure.....tomato sauce!