Hoummus

I'm really shocked. Seriously. How could you buy hoummus!?

First of all, stop buying it. Even the Kosher kind is wacky compared to the stuff you can really easily make by yourself.

All you need is a blender:)
And love:)

Let's do it!

Type of dish: side, paste, dip
Cost: cheap
Difficulty: easy
Serves: 4
Time: 5 min!!!!
Preparation time: 5 min


You'll need:
a knife, a can opener, a hand blender or blender, a medium sized bowl, spoon, teaspoon

Ingredients:

• 1 can chickpeas, drained
• 1 garlic clove ( add more and other's will know  you've had hoummus)
• 1 tsp dijon mustard
• juice from one lemon
• olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• optional: cayenne pepper

In your blender, or bowl (if you only have a hand blender), put in the chickpeas, mustard, garlic clove, 1/3 of the lemon juice, a pinch of S&P and about 1/2 cup olive oil. Start blending. Check after 2 minutes to taste, add more salt, pepper, lemon juice or olive oil.  When you have a thick, even paste, you're done. Serve with warm pita bread or vegetable sticks.

IT'S THAT EASY!

Additional information: To make red hoummus, add to the blender 1 or 2 dried tomatoes. And don't salt until you've tried it.
You can also add tahini paste, which is made from sesame seeds, but why bother. You can drizzle more olive oil over the finished hoummus, for example, truffle oil, or spicy oils. Man, it's good. Experiment a bit to find what taste you like most. You can also add some pumpkin seeds to the finished paste.

ps. You can use a tsp of tahini if you have it, but it's not really that nescessary. I live without it.

Amazing Tomato Sauce

You will be grateful for this recipe, because it will change your life, perspective, future choices and so on. Look into the sauce...

It's blatantly easy, so if you're planning, let's say, a pizza, this is a great sauce for the pizza base and as and additional sauce substitution for ketchup. Yes, ketchup. I think you might even make more of this sauce just to smear it anywhere- sandwiches, pasta, meat, the sort.

Trust me, everybody will like you even more once you know this recipe:)

Let's get it on... oh sugar... Let's get it on...Damn you Marvin Gaye.

Type of dish: sauce, dip
Cost: cheap
Difficulty: easy
Serves: 4-6
Time: 35 min
Preparation time: 2 min
Cooking time: 30 min

You'll need:
A low, shallow but deep (?) Saucepan of the frying pan kind. , cutting board, sharp knife, spatula, medium bowl, teaspoon

Ingredients:

• 2 cans of chopped tomatoes. ( or 1kg of fresh tomatoes, skinless)
•  2-3 garlic cloves, minced 
• 1 pinch of coarse sea salt ( buy 1kg and it will serve you for a lifetime, and your friends too)
• 2 tsp red pepper flakes
• grated rind from 1 lemon
• 1 pinch sugar
• 3tbsp olive oil

Get your guns up- Don't turn anything on yet. This is going to be a gentle, fragrant process. In the saucepan, pour in olive oil, sea salt, garlic and pepper flakes. mix it evenly and turn on your cooker, on medium high. Keep close to the pan now. Stir a bit with your spatula and keep sniffing. The sniffing is key to this recipe. Sniff until you can smell the garlic and pepper beginning to smell somewhat more intense than before. The garlic should still be white during this. Let it heat up more, until you just get that the garlics turning golden and plop in the tomatoes. mash them up with your spatula, mix well so the oil incorporates with the tomatoes. Mix it mix it. Now turn  down the heat a notch or two, best if it's medium, and go away. Come back every 4-5 to 6-8 minutes to stir, because we are reduced the water in the tomatoes. The sauce has to be thicker than tomato juice, but thinner than paste. This takes about 25 mins, and until then your sauce should have the constistency you look for in a pizza sauce. You know, the kind you get when you order pizza? Turn off the heat.
Okay, now add the lemon rind, mix, and taste it. You may need to add the sugar if the sauce is a little bit too acidic/bitter. just a pinch will do.
Taste again and you're ready to go. Eat, I mean.

This recipe makes enough sauce for 3 large pizza's plus for topping them all. If you don't plan on making this for pizza and need more, either use 1 can of tomatoes, or freeze the amount you don't need.
Gotta love freezing:)

Guacamole

So you like avocado? Us too. There's a few ways of serving it, and it usualy involves 1 avocado half per person. Sometimes the avocado we find in stores are unripe, hard and basicly useless for the next few days until we set them ripen in the kitchen, hopefully in a warm place. Guacamole is used as a sauce, or more popular, as a dip for crisps, but it's great as an addition for salads or nachos. Or tortillas, for that matter.
The home made version is a million times better than the junk sold in jars which has absolutly no resemblance to actual guacamole. I hereby bann store bought guacamole! Apage!
Here's how to make the real goody stuff:

Type of dish: sauce, dip, side

Cost: medium

Difficulty:  easy

Time:  15 min

Serves: 3-6

Preparation time: 15 minutes

What you need to make this dish:

sharp knife, cutting board, medium bowl, spoon, fork

Ingredients:

• 1-2 ripe avocados
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• juice of 1 lime
• 1/2 small tomato
• 1/2 small chili pepper
• 1/2 small red onion, chopped up finely
• 1/2 small garlic clove, peeled and smashed
• salt
• pepper
• fresh cilantro

How to prepare:
Your newly acquired chopping and cutting skills are fabulous here. Cut the avocados in half, around the seed. Open up and whack you knife straight into the seed, then firmly holding the avocado half, turn the knife. The seed should stay on the knife. Now get rid of the seed, we won't need it. Use the spoon to remove the avocado from the skin, put in bowl. Dice the tomato and pop that in the bowl too. Now slice the chili pepper into small pieces and throw that in the bowl. Same goes with the onion and garlic. All in the bowl. Now, using a fork, smash the avocado, so most of it is a pulpy mash, and mix well. Pour in the olive oil and lime juice. Try a bit. Make a face- you probably need more lime juice or salt. Or pepper for that matter. So season, mix again and add a little bit of chopped cilantro. Cool down in the fridge until you're ready to serve.

Additional information:
We know some people who don't like it spicy, so if you're one of them, leave out the chili and garlic (shame on you!).