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
They're so hot, they're making me sexist. Bastards.
This post wasn’t actually brought to you by Flight of the Conchords, but it was brought to you by several things, including but not limited to: Bota Box Shiraz, two lovely ladies and fellow contributors to assist me, and Milo the Cat.
The Lovely Ladies
Alright, down to business. Like I said, WINE. Pour yourself a glass. Or three. Or pour yourself a whatever; I don’t care, just get it done. This curry doesn’t take a whole lot of effort, or even super-complex ingredients, but it does need a little time so you’ll want to be sure you have something delicious to sip on.
I almost always make a green halibut Indonesian-style curry. It’s not that I don’t enjoy or appreciate other curries (well, that’s a lie. I’m actually not really down with Indian curry. I just don’t care for it, ok? Give me a lamb-something that’s Indian and lots of garlic-cilantro naan to eat it with, and I’m fine. Otherwise, I don’t care for it) but I’m really just partial to this particular curry. Furthermore, The Wife (Margaret) requests it just about as often as she requests my pork adobo - another time, kids - which is to say, constantly.
If you don’t remember my last post, here are a few ground rules:
1. Don’t sass me.
2. Pour yourself a draaaaaank before you get underway. It helps. Swearsies.
3. Understand that there is a lot of room for variation in these dishes, so adapt it for your own tastes/whatever you have on hand, within reason.
Ingredients, assemble!
Green Halibut Curry
Oil, such as canola or peanut oil (olive in a pinch; something with a higher smoke point is better if you’ve got it)
1-2 large shallots, halved and sliced thinly
1 ½ to 2 tblsp green curry paste, Mae Ploy if you can get it (for the love of Christ, stay away from Thai Kitchen)
½ a yellow onion, sliced in to ½ inch chunks
¾ lb crimini mushrooms, quartered
2-ish crowns of broccoli
1 bell pepper; red/yellow/orange are best to add some color
1-ish lbs of small red or Yukon potatoes with the skin on
2-inch chunk of ginger, sliced thinly (peel it with a paring knife or leave the skin on)
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 cans of coconut milk, preferably light
1 – 1 ½ tblsp fish sauce (this is some smelly stuff – be wary and keep it in the pot or else you will smell of The Fermented Sea Apocalypse forever and ever)
4-6 lime leaves
1-2 lbs of halibut, depending on how many you’re feeding and how much you have
Handful of cilantro, chopped roughly
Small handful of Thai (or regular, if you can’t find Thai) basil, chopped roughly
A lime or two, sliced for squeezin'
Choppity-chop-chop
Heat up a wok, a really wide and deep skillet, or a Dutch oven - whatever you’ve got that’s closest. It needs to be pretty dang hot. Throw some oil in there, about a tablespoon. Once it’s hot, throw in your shallots and move those suckers around in the pan with your stirring implement of choice. After they start to get translucent and then a bit crisp, add the green curry paste. Obvs adding less will make it a little more mild and adding more will make it more spicy, but green curry is meant to be an herbaceous, medium-heat curry. Get the green curry incorporated with the shallots, add a little more oil if necessary, and then throw in your mushrooms and onions with just a sprinkle of salt to help draw out the moisture.
I put the bell pepper in a bit early; I'm a rebel like that.
You can leave those on their own for the most part – move them around a bit so that the onions don’t get too brown but you can finish your last minute prep right now if you need to, such as cutting up the fish. I like to do large chunks, about an inch square, but you can do them a bit smaller if you prefer. Halibut will flake nicely so you’ll end up with bite size pieces anyway and keeping them a little larger will help you control the cooking process better, especially if you’re not totally comfortable with cooking fish. Put the fish aside in a bowl with some salt & pepper.
Many thanks to Margaret's dad, who doesn't know he contributed this delicious halibut.
Put your potatoes into a bowl with some water and toss some plastic wrap over the top, then put it in the microwave for about five minutes. You want to par-cook the potatoes so that they cook faster in your curry while absorbing the flaaaavas. Throw your broccoli and bell pepper into the pan and get it moving around with all the other goodness; after a couple of minutes, throw in the garlic and ginger. After about thirty seconds, empty your cans of coconut milk into the pan and add the fish sauce, stirring well. Throw the lime leaves in, turn the heat to low, and throw a half-cocked lid over that bad boy. I recommend eating rice with this (I guess you could eat it as-is, but I’m all about shamelessly doubling up on the carbs) or maybe some kind of rice noodle, so get your rice or whatevs going while your curry slightly simmers away.
Don't be a bunch of filthy perverts (like Liz). It's just coconut milk in slow-motion.
While that’s all doing its thaaaang and getting happy, slice some limes into squeezable chunks, then chop up the cilantro and Thai basil. I happen to have some nice little ramekins that I put each of these into, because I’m fancy as fuck like that. However, you can literally throw it all in a bowl or pile it on a plate or do whatever you gots to do. If you’re working with larger chunks of fish, put it into the curry about ten minutes before the rice is done, gently folding it in so that it gets covered with yummy, thickened coconut milk.
Mmm...like so.
FINALLY, once the rice is done (man, seriously, rice and I aren’t friends. Half the time I totally eff it up – like I did this time – and have to start over. Rice and frosting: they are both a culinary Waterloo for me) and the curry has been getting happy for awhile, put that good stuff in a bowl.
Sprinkle your lovely additions over it with maybe some soy sauce/Braggs amino acids, perhaps some Sriracha, and then put your face in that bowl. For real.
Face.
Bowl.
Repeat.
We played the new Santigold album, Master of My Make Believe, which I have been digging on for the last week or so because NPR had it up on their First Listen site, along with new Rufus Wainwright, the new Royal Headache, and the new Norah Jones/Dangermouse collaboration.
After a couple glasses of wine, we also listened to some Pitbull. Keep your shade to yourself, haters.
We don't know how to use a webcam, or edit videos;
We secretly desire to become Youtube sensations.
Moral of the story, KDP video blogs are only going to be a special occasion event.
Here are some pics from the day (especially of the camera shy Liz and Mags)
Matzo Brei
Yes, it looks like cat vomit.
(serves 2)
You'll need:
2 sheets of matzo (or 14, depending on how you roll)
2 eggs (or 8, see above)
salt
pepper
2 tbsp vegetable oil
-Break the matzo into 1/2 inch pieces. Put in a bowl. Rinse under hot tap water for 30 seconds. Drain.
-Whisk eggs in another bowl. Mix matzo and eggs, season with salt and pepper. -
-heat oil in a skillet. Put batter in skillet, either in one fell swoop or in smaller pancake style discs.
-Fry into golden.
Cookie Butter
Tasty things to make them taste like something:
applesauce
yogurt
cookie butter
peanut butter
pesto
sriracha
fruit
cinnamon
nutmeg
syrup
jam
peanut sauce
Music Land: I just posted about this, but we legit spent the weekend listening to Of Monsters and Men. See my previous post.
Sorry, I had to learn my way around iMovie (let's be honest, Mag's did the majority of it).
But video blog easter egg- There might be some David Bowie love in KDP's future.
My 25th birthday is tomorrow and I still eat cereal for breakfast every.single.day. About a year ago I switched from skim milk to unflavored almond milk but I still eat fairly sugary crap for breakfast = no bueno. With some gentle guidance from Renai and Val I recently undertook one of those damn hippie cleanses from The Herbalist, no I don't wanna talk about it, yes it was traumatic, yes I cheated on like day 5, no I don't need you to judge me. ANYway I did learn something from this cleanse and that was the way of the breakfast smoothie. I jammed out with the breakfast smoothie throughout the whole 10 day (5 if you paid attention about my cheating) cleanse. Just this week I decided to have a smoothie instead of cereal for allllll of my weekday breakfasts. A big change for this adult child but that's just how awesome the breakfast smoothie really is! You really can't argue with getting some of your 5 fruits and veggies a day first thing in the morning and I stay full until lunch so that's a lot win-win in your mason jar!
Did you know that your average blender blade attachment thingy fits perfectly on your average mason jar? Cuz I didn't until Pinterest told me. It's true, I'll wait while you go try it on for size....done? Ok. Now how effing cool is that anyway? It cuts the amount of dishes needed to make and enjoy a smoothie by half! Half! Math! So what I do is prep most of my smoothie at night before I go to bed and it goes something like this:
Breakfast Smoothie:
- half of a peeled orange, chopped up
- half of an average carrot, chopped up
- some kale or chard if I have any, it really adds that nice green color to your brekafast
- a handful of hand-picked, frozen, wild Alaskan blueberries (what you don't have those? store bought will do)
-small portions of any other random fruit you have laying around, I normally toss in an apple slice or a couple strawberries, and 1/2 a cucumber is a super refreshing addition. We get a Full Circle Farms box every other week so I almost never buy fruit or veg from the store and end up just using whatever random stuff I have before it goes bad.
1. At this point I just put the blade thingy on it and stick it in my fridge
2. My roomie wakes up right when I leave so I wait until just before I leave to toss in the rest of the ingredients and blend it up cuz I'm nice and I want him to have a good day/ not hate me for waking him up before his alarm. Love me some not-cranky Joel Ion!
Second half of ingredients:
-a teaspoon of chia seeds
-probably about 1/4 cup of soy or almond milk
-6-8 ice cubes
3. blend like the dickens. My blender is rad but the little thing is just a blender, I know fancier folks have those vita mix thingies, and more power to them but kitchen redundancy and whatnot so I make-do with my 2nd hand blender. I make a royal racket blending because I don't like my smoothie to be really liquiddy, I prefer a more gelatinous mixture (thanks chia seeds) so it's just harder to grind down at first, turns out great.
4. put a lid on it and you're done! I like to drink mine at work straight out of the jar, it really grosses my boss out, he's the one that calls it a swamp thing.
Listening to: The sweet sound of my blender when I make my brekkie and my favesies playlist on Spotify when I'm sipping on it at my desk.
combine with latte from The Rookery and you're good to go!
Bo! Drunkard! It's fall and I'm already yearning for early spring and picking fiddleheads before they grow into big, beautiful ferns *sigh* at least we can make big plans for when that time comes. The first week of May was when the fiddleheads were just right for picking and pickling. I spent a couple of lunch breaks and a few hours after work that week picking bags full of the pretty little green friends as this was my first year knowing what to do with fiddleheads and I had no idea what was involved in prepping them! Turns out it's a major PIA to clean the brown skin-like stuff off of them and I spent as much time cleaning them as I did picking them (seriously, con a friend into helping with that part) but I have no problem guaranteeing that all of the effort is
totally worth it.
Lookit how stinking pretty fiddleheads are!
I spent a lot of time trying to find a simple recipe for pickling and canning my haul and surprisingly to me found a great recipe on the State of Alaska WIC website which goes something like this (with a few changes added by me):
Fiddleheads, Raw- about a gallon bag full
Garlic, Raw -8ish cloves
Shallots, 2 or 3 (I had some laying around and wanted to pickle them)
Dill Weed, about a cup fresh from my garden
Variety of Fresh Herbs, I used Rosemary, Basil and Thyme
Red Pepper 1/4 cup (I don't like spicy things)
Water 2 Quarts
Apple Cider Vinegar 6 Cups
Pickling Salt 1/2 Cup
Pick and clean about one gallon of fiddleheads (best with about 3 inches stem and before they curl out). Place in cold water until ready to blanche them.
Sterilize jars and lids.
Blanche fiddleheads for 5 minutes in boiling water (safety first!). Place them in a colander to drain.
Peel and cut into quarters about 8 cloves of garlic. Set aside in small bowl. Have dill weed and crushed red peppers ready with the garlic and shallots.
In large pan, pour 8 cups water, 6 cups apple cider vinegar and 1/2 cup pickling salt. This mixture has to be boiling when poured over fiddleheads.
Take sterile jars out of water and sit on thick towel. Place equal amounts of garlic in each jar. Place approximately 3 stems of dill weed, your variety of fresh herbs and 1/2 teaspoon of crushed red pepper in each jar with garlic. Stuff drained fiddlestick on top of garlic, dill and peppers. I try to pack mine tight by pushing the fiddleheads down into the jars, otherwise they tend to be bulky and take up a lot of space.
Pour boiling vinegar mixture over fiddleheads leaving a small space at top of jar. Quickly cover with sterile lid and ring and finger-tighten immediately. Boil the jars with lids on for 10 minutes. Remove sealed jars and place on a thick towel or wood cutting board to cool overnight.
After jars cool, check that they have sealed properly. Label and let sit in pantry for a month or two. They are best if served chilled on delicious gouda or atop a tasty bloody mary.
Tunes: While picking I listen to my silly blonde dog run around sniffing marmot poop and while canning I think I was just listening to some NPR.
In large pan, pour 8 cups water, 6 cups apple cider vinegar and 1/2 cup pickling salt. This mixture has to be boiling when poured over fiddleheads.
Pour boiling vinegar mixture over fiddleheads leaving a small space at top of jar. Quickly cover with sterile lid and ring and finger-tighten immediately. Boil the jars with lids on for 10 minutes. Remove sealed jars and place on a thick towel or wood cutting board to cool overnight. 
