SUNDRIED TOMATO HUMMUS

I can't remember the first time I ever had hummus. I must have been in my teens, and I'm guessing my sister introduced me. I'm still amazed at the amount she managed to expand my world while growing up. I still haven't figured out how she grasped such information, but I'm thankful she passed it on.

One of the perks of living overseas in West Africa and working a job with crazy overtime was the vacation. Sitting in the office one afternoon, two of my co-workers spun the globe, and settled their sights on Egypt. It didn't take long (just a few hours of making pyramid and funny sphinx shapes with their arms) and a I and another were in. We booked our tickets that day and were off in two. There's something about last-minute, totally spontaneous trips that I just love. It's like you bypass all the icky planning and waiting and just jump to the fun and adventure. I think I ate hummus every single day in Egypt. Our fallucca (boat) captain made it for us on a 3-day trip down the Nile, I had it on pita from street vendors, at lunch-time cafes. I really enjoy hummus - it's super easy and simple, and a great protein source for us veggie-lovin' peeps. It's so easy that it's pretty much instant gratification...did I mention I'm still a kid at heart?

SUN DRIED TOMATO HUMMUS

1 can chickpeas, drained

juice of 1 lemon, about 2 Tablespoons

1 Tablespoon tahini (sesame seed paste)

1 Tablespoon olive or safflower oil

1 garlic clove

3 sun dried tomatoes

cayenne pepper, to taste

1/2 - 1 cup water and chickpea liquid

1. Put first 6 ingredients in blender or food processor.
2. Blend until well combined and mixture becomes homogeneous.
3. Add water and/or chickpea liquid until the consistency is spreadable and dippable.

Hummus is good with so many things: pita, raw carrots, falafel, salad. A friend even made it into a tasty pasta sauce. I sauteed some onion, corrilini mushrooms, carrots, lettuce, and tomatoes and dipped it all in. I love eating with my hands!

TwD: CHOCOLATE AMARETTI TORTE

Chocolate Amaretti Torte, chosen by Holly of Phe/MOM/enon. Dorie describes it as 15 minute magic. Magic...yeah, I would have to agree, though not because it takes so little time and is so easy to make. Honestly, any time I have to break out (and break down and clean) the food processor (and its very sharp blade), the recipe slides into the dangerous, way too much clean-up category and I start to sneer at the ingredients list wondering if a mixer will suffice.

This time I escaped with only a tiny cut from washing the blade and a delicious, rich, velvet-textured chocolate cake. I cut the recipe in third and made four mini tortes. They rose up about three inches in the oven, then sank to a meager one while cooling. I thought they might be too little, but boy was I underestimating. Half of one little chocolate amaretti torte drenched in chocolate cream sauce and I was chugging milk and crying done.

I definitely enjoyed every bite. I loved the Amaretti, which is odd because I do not like meringue. I even smashed some up and sprinkled on top. I didn't actually know what amaretti was before I hunted it down in Epicurious - a lovely little specialy food store on the beach. Amaretti has a nice little love story attached to it, dating from the early 1700s during the Renaissance of a couple who made these for a visiting bishop and were blessed with a happy marriage.

TwD: BANANA CREAM PIES

Banana, custard creme, banana, custard creme, whipped creme...mmm, lots of creme. All thanks to Amy of Sing for Your Supper for this week's pick. Congratulations to Amy - her blog turned one last week! Happy Bloggie Birthday!
I was afraid to have a whole pie on-hand that Dorie said was best eaten that day - that's a whole lotta creme, so I made one-third of the recipe, made a bottom-only chocolate crust, and put it in four ramekins.

With all the creme and bananas, my taste buds were expecting something akin to Banana Pudding. The really good kind made with homemade vanilla pudding, Nilla wafers, and lightly browned meringue. Alas, this is no banana pudding. But it is good - especially the custard! I think it would be great with cherries.

I actually liked this best the day after, once the flavors had mixed and mingled. I wasn't completely happy with the chocolate crust, which was an experiment and so won't post the recipe here. But I'll try again.

Next week, we're back to getting our chocolate fixes. I have to say I'm looking forward to it!

IRISH SODA BREAD

I was planning on making Irish Soda Bread for St. Patrick's Day, but ran out of time. So I whipped up a loaf later when things slowed down a bit. I used a super simple, no-fail recipe that I had written in my recipe book at least five years ago.

Irish Soda Bread

3 cups of all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 Tablespoons butter

1 cup buttermilk (or substitute 1 cup milk + 1 Tablespoon lemon juice mixed)

1 handful of trail mix, for those who also love nutty breads

1. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda.
2. Cut in the butter until mixture resembles course meal.
3. Add buttermilk and stir until moistened.
4. Turn out the ball of dough and knead for 1 minute. Pat into a round, approximately 9 inches. Transfer to a buttered baking sheet and cut a large cross on top.
5. Bake at 425 F for 40 minutes. The loaf will sound hollow when done.

There's something so satisfying about pulling a lovely loaf of bread out of the oven. It smelled so good baking and bread seems so daunting that the fact that it came out recognizable as a loaf of bread was delightful. You should have seen me knocking on the loaf with my ear to the crust, looking as if I expected someone to knock back and call out - come in to my loaf! because I'm sure I looked silly.

After the glee that I had produced bread wore off, I decided that Irish Soda Bread is good, but is better with butter...and even better with something fruity...something like...apple butter. So I used the Granny Smiths I had to make an apple butter that was delicious. I wasn't sure how it would turn out using Granny Smith apples, which aren't typically used for apple butter, but I have to say I was more than pleasantly surprised. Some apple butters tend to be very sweet and very clove-heavy. The tartness of the apples enhanced the sweet and the clove tastes.

I have to admit that I didn't measure anything for the apple butter. I just threw in the ingredients and surveyed by sight.

Apple Butter (Roughly)

3 apples

1/2 cup of sugar

1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

pinch of salt

1. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and add water just to cover the bottom.
2. Bring to a boil and cook on medium heat.
3. Stir and mash the apples and continue to cook.
4. Cook. Cook. And cook some more. Until a dark brown color and thick enought to spread.

TwD: COCONUT BUTTER THINS

Up until the age of about 20 or so, asked my favorite food, and I would respond: coconut. Beyond this one word, I could never decide how I liked it best, whether sweetened and shredded or nibbled fresh from the hull. So I've been looking forward to Jayne's pick this week even though shortbread is not my favorite.

I ran into a few bumps. Believe it or not, the grocery store had zero macadamia nuts. I had no coriander, and only unsweetened coconut in the house (and again, none at the store. I guess this is what I get for trying to shop for baking goodies at a health food store.) So I decided to use slivered almonds, unsweetened coconut, and lots of lime zest.

The cookies were very crumbly, both before and after baking. I wasn't able to prick them with a fork before baking. Any and all attempts to softly press down resulted in a huge crevice and many unsightly cracks and crumbs. I was even caught "cleaning" up these crumbs as I chatted on the phone with a "What are you eating?" Oopsy. My cookies didn't turn out to be that attractive, but they did taste good. I think my mom, who loves shortbread, would be able to appreciate them much more than I can, even with the coconut.

These little squares disappeared way too quickly. I nibbled away all night thinking of lime in da coconut pie. And the boy who isn't here, but at his home many 100s of miles away. So the cookies, and all the crumbs, were put to very good use.

TwD: BLACKBERRY CRUMB CAKE

This pick from Sihan of Befuddlement couldn't have come at a better time. I have two wonderful house guests coming on Tuesday for Miami's Winter Music Festival. Yes, lots of dancing and good times to come in the next week. And we will need a little sugar and lots of caffeine to keep it all going.

The original recipe calls for blueberries although Dorie says you can use any berry except strawberries, which are too watery. I chose blackberries because I love them and love the tart and sweet combination of blackberry cobblers. This was equally a great combo. The recipe also calls for orange or lemon rind rubbed into sugar. I used orange, and it turned the sugar a most glorious saffron yellow! It also added a nice, subtle orange flavor to the cake. I was actually surprised that I could distinctly taste it after baking. Instead of using all walnuts for the topping, I used walnuts, cashews, and almonds; mainly because I had them on-hand. I decided to make muffins and filled 12 muffin tins almost to the top. There was still batter left over so I filled two ramekins. I really should have left more room for the muffins. They poofed and went flat on top instead of doming like regular muffins. The crumble didn't want to stay on very well and looks spotty. It seemed to be trying to escape the muffins. Both problems would have been solved if they had room to rise just to the top of the tin. Despite looking like a bunch of mutts, they taste delicious. The ramekins fared much better looks-wise and taste pretty much the same - yum!

I will definitely be making this again, and would love to try it with mixed berries.

Discoveries:

• Crumble will be crumble, and fall from even baked muffins. Containment.
• Move over cranberry, orange has a new friend.
• I don't know how to spell ramekin...ramikin...ramiken...ramakin...ramaken...very confusing word. Glad I only have to bake with it.

TwD: NAPOLEON'S CAKE

When Napoleon was in excile on the island of St. Helena, I'm sure he made this cake. It's a traditional French yogurt cake island-style - baked with banana mango yogurt, ground mixed nuts, fresh mango and strawberries, and topped with a sweet layer of caramel coconut.

I've been wanting to make a French yogurt cake for the better part of a year after seeing some of Clotilde's on Chocolate and Zucchini. So I was excited when Liliana of My Cookbook Addiction chose this week's recipe. It was easy to make, fail-proof as Dorie said in the recipe. It's like a pound cake, which surprised me because it's reportedly a favorite birthday cake for little Frenchies. You mean kids the world over don't go for the sugar + lard iced sheet cake with potato chips and coke?! Wait until they find out what they're missing. Napoleon incarnate just might rise up; an eight-year old would be about the right size.

Instead of butter, this cake has oil. Combined with the ground nuts (walnuts, almonds, pistachios, and cashews) and yogurt, this cake turned out incredibly moist, which translates to magically disappearing in my kitchen. After putting about a fourth of the batter in the pan, I layered fresh strawberry and mango slices, and then covered with the remaining batter. The coconut topping was inspired by one my Granny sometimes adds to banana bread.

COCONUT TOPPING

2 Tablespoons butter

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup confectioner's sugar

1 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut

• Mix over medium heat until melted.
• Let simmer 2-5 minutes until the coconut takes on a caramel color.
• Spread over cooled cake.
  

Three discoveries from this week:

1. Lemon zest rubbed into sugar produces a most enticing aroma! Why has no candle company fancied this one yet? There is every other imaginable scent, from obscure to downright choking-hand-me-the-coffee-beans-NOW gross.
2. A new fave yogurt!
3. There could be worse things than being in exile on an island.