Tomato Basil Hummus

So much basil, so little time!!

You will need:
1 big tomato (I used a hothouse tomato, you could probably use 2 or 3 romas)
5-6 basil leaves
3 TBS olive oil
1 can garbanzo beans/chick peas
salt/pepper
1TBS lemon juice
2 cloves garlic

1. Heat olive oil over medium heat (olive oil has a low smoke point, and heating it too high can damage the molecules, which in turn causes problems when your body tries to use those fats... more on this later).
2. Cut tomato into chunks so the blender can tackle it. Add to oil.
3. Roughly cut the garlic cloves. No precision needed here, it's going into the blender anyway.
4. Wash and cut basil leaves by stacking the leaves, rolling them, and cutting across the roll. Voila! basil confetti!
5. Let the tomatoes, garlic, and basil hang out in the hot oil, stirring occasionally, while you open, drain, and rinse a can of garbanzo beans.
6. Put the beans, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and tomato/oil mixture into the blender (or a food processor, if you're so fortunate as to have one). Blend until smooth.

Store the hummus in an air-tight container in the refrigerator. Next time I make these, I think I'll seed the tomatoes or add another can of garbanzos. The hummus was less thick than I would like.

Back to super-heated fats...

When you heat an oil too high, the molecular composition of the oil changes. It becomes damaged, and lots of nasty by-products are also produced. Cooking by grilling or frying, or hydrogenating oils (like the fats in processed foods like margarine) causes these changes. When we ingest these damaged fats, the body still tries to use them. They become part of the phosopolipid bilayer in our cell membranes which causes the cells to become more rigid, and contributes to insulin resistance and diabetes. Damaged fats also create inflammation, which can aggravate arthritis and cause a number of other problems.

Moral of the story: cook low and slow. Baking, crock-potting, and boiling are some of the best ways to prepare foods without damaging the fats or other nutrients present.

Hi Mom! & Red Pepper Hummus

My mom has been telling me for a while now that I need to write a recipe book. Whenever I go home, I cook something that she and my dad enjoy, and my brother tolerates at best. For my seventeen year old brother, if there are too many vegetables or an obvious lack of meat, it's not a meal.

Long story short - I love food, I'm vegetarian, and I need to entertain my love for baking and veggie cooking on a college-student's budget. This blog will detail the best (and worst) of my cooking and baking adventures and experiments. I'm not one to follow recipes or use measuring utensils... but here goes.

This Red Pepper Hummus Recipe is quite the example of college ingenuity. I don't have a food processor, but I've found that a blender works just as well. Also, tahini (sesame seed paste) is really expensive and doesn't keep well... so I've simply omitted it.

This recipe makes 4 or so cups of hummus.

1. Cut up 1/2 a red pepper into smallish chunks. Put the pieces in a hot pan with 2-3 seconds' worth (2-3 Tbs) of canola or olive oil and 1-2 cloves of garlic. Olive oil has a low smoke-point, and heating it above this point can create cancerous agents... so I tend to use canola oil for cooking the pepper in.
2. Open, drain, and rinse 2 cans of garbanzo beans and throw 'em in a blender with some salt, pepper, and lemon juice. I'm not sure exactly how much of each I usually use, but when you taste it at the end, you will figure out what more it needs.
3. Once the peppers begin to blacken a bit, add them and the garlic into the blender with the beans. I usually add 1/2 cup water and a few tablespoons of olive oil to the mixture, and then blend it until smooth.
4. Here's where you taste it and see if it needs more salt, pepper, or lemon juice.

I serve the hummus with whole wheat pita, carrots, celery, or broccoli. It keeps well in the fridge in an air-tight container for a few days... it never lasts longer than that. The hummus without the red pepper is also tasty!

Om Nom Nom!