Israeli Salad

I spent 10 days in Israel and now consider myself an expert on Israeli salad. As one does.

But David Lebovitz had some pretty good ideas about it too.
I mean, how could you not with a name like Lebovitz.

Israeli Salad (from David Lebovitz)

You'll need
1 ripe tomato
1 cucumber
1 carrot- peeled
2-3 tbsp red onion- chopped
1 small beet- peeled
arugula
1/4 c parsley or cilantro- chopped*
2/3 c mixed nuts and seeds (walnuts, almonds, pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds etc...)- chopped
1/3 c feta or goat cheese- crumbled
2-3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
2-3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
sea salt and pepper

* If you want to get crazy, try mint, chives, tarragon... every country claims this salad as their own.

-Chop all the vegetables into tiny tiny cubes. Slice the arugula.
-Toast the nuts in a skillet (no oil), over medium heat and shake the pan frequently so they don't burn. Stop when they are a little brown and you can smell them.
-Mix all of the vegetables, nuts, cheese, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.

-Serve pretty quickly, no one likes old salad.

Spotify has changed my life again by introducing me to LP

It's common knowledge that I'm a sucker for whistling.

Solgrrrrr Hummus

Liz gained a Mister Sol Grr!

The wedding was a beautiful redneck shit show, in every way that you expect an open bar wedding in Juneau Alaska to be.

And in true Liz fashion, I was informed two days before that I was bringing the hummus.

For 300 people.

Now, to most people, this isn't a huge deal. You throw a bunch of chickpeas in a food processor with some tahini and let it do it's thing.
But I'm not actually most people. I'm on a mission to create the smoothest hummus possible, which means peeling
every
single
chickpea.

"But Hannah!" you cry, "That's just crazy talk!"

Well, yes. It is, but it's also true. Taking the tiny layer off of every cooked chickpea leaves you without clumps and without hummus farts. It's a win win.

For two days I became a hummus making factory.
This is my story.

Super Traditional, Super smooth hummus (perfected by Hannah)

You'll need:
1 lb dried chickpeas
2 or 3 lemons- juiced
1/4 c tahini
7 or 8 cloves of garlic- chopped
olive oil
paprika, salt and pepper

-soak the dried chickpeas over night
-Boil the chickpeas the next day, for about an hour, or until they are soft. Drain, rinse etc... SAVE THE WATER.
-Peel the chickpeas. The best technique for this is to pinch the rounded end with two fingers and let the skin pop off. It's satisfying for the first ten, then it gets tiring, then it gets boring, then you get tennis elbow.
-Put all of the chickpeas in the food processor. Process them until crumbly.

-Put the lemon juice, the garlic and tahini in the processor, while it's running, slowly add in the reserved water, 1 tbsp at the time, until it's smooth and dip-able. Season with salt and pepper.
-Put it in a bowl, pour olive oil on top and sprinkle with paprika.

-Get drunk at a wedding.


No music this week.... Well sort of, I'm super into:
Milk Carton Kids
Steve Gunn
Chris Thile's Bach album
so more of the same.

But on a completely different note, I'm spending the next 9 months in Bucharest Romania on a Fulbright Grant!
I'll continue to post here, probably at the same frequency as I already do. But you can track my adventures in Romania at this blog:
Romania plus Hannah equals Blog