Easy hummus recipe

Making hummus from scratch is beyond easy. It's a staple at our house and is ready in a few minutes! The hardest thing I always find is to wash up the food processor. 

All you need is chickpeas, aquafaba (chickpea brine), lemon juice, olive oil, tahini (sesame paste), and some salt/seasoning. I don't usually use measurements but I fill up the smaller bowl of the food processor untill it's almost full. I'd guess it's about three cups of chickpeas, and make sure they're a bit warm as this will ease the blending process. Then I use about a cup of aquafaba, also lukewarm, it can be a bit less if you like your hummus firmer (we like it a bit more on the runny side, as we scoop it out with bread), a generous drizzle of olive oil, half a cup of tahini*, some ground black pepper, ground cumin, and salt. Finally squeeze out half a lemon on top of all this. Just blend until it's smooth and that's it! Serve on a plate with additional olive oil, sprinkle some extra (unblended) chickpeas on top and devour! We serve this with homemade flatbread. It's such an easy, delicious meal. 

*Tahini is hard to find where we live, so I make my own mock "tahini" in the blender with olive oil and sesame seeds. This is a bit more runny than real tahini, but since I mainly use it for these kind of recipes it doesn't really matter. I've heard that others even substitute the tahini for peanut butter, and I don't see why that wouldn't work! In fact, I usually make hummus after I've made peanut butter- the food processor it quite a hassle to wash up so this way I'll "use twice, wash once". 

Other substitutes: since we've got our own lemon tree, we kind of refuse to buy lemons. So when they're off season we rather find a lemon substitute than to buy off season lemons for a high price. The best lemon substitute I have yet found is whey. I personally wouldn't recommend vinegar. 

This probably is not the most authentic recipe out there. We're not middle eastern, so that probably plays a role too, but I hope this comes at least a bit close to real authentic hummus. 

Multi grain pancakes

There was some homemade buttermilk sitting in the fridge that smelled a bit off, so it needed to used up quickly. The thing with making things from scratch is that it usually doesn't last as long as store bought stuff, because it's lacking preservatives and other funny ingredients. So you need to plan ahead or at least make sure to make use of it within a limited time frame. 

Usually we go through the buttermilk quickly but somehow that didn't happen this time. Fortunately, there are still ways to use it. A lot of recipes call for buttermilk and the good thing is, when using buttermilk when baking it doesn't really matter if it's not in the best condition anymore. What's important that it's still sour, and that's the very thing which make it "taste off"; it's become a bit *too* sour. So this morning I decided to make pancakes, it's one of our go-to breakfasts, especially when I need to use up something that would otherwise spoil (like whey, oatmeal pulp, or buttermilk). I used half white flour and half healthier grains (whole wheat and oatmeal). I tried a lot, and usually they came out either too dense, too dry or too fluffy. While eating more whole grains is our goal, by using only whole grains for this pancakes it just didn't come out with the right texture. So that's why I used half/half, that way at least it's somewhat healthier than when made completely with white flour. 

For a big batch of pancakes, you'll need:  

2 cups of white flour

1 cup of ground oatmeal 

1 cup of whole wheat flour

4 teaspoon of baking powder 

1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda 

To taste: A dash of cinnamon, vanilla, some sugar

4 cups of buttermilk (since it was so sour I used 3 cups of buttermilk and one cup of potato boiling water that I kept in the fridge)

4 heaped spoons margarine or butter, melted 

4 eggs, or 3 if they're large

Mix the dry ingredients with a whisk and set aside. Melt your butter/margarine and let it cool. In a big bowl, mix the buttermilk, eggs, and butter until the eggs are lightly beaten. Now add the dry ingredients to the liquid ingredients. Stirr well using a whisk; make sure not to mix it, I just use the whisk to make the stirring easier but you can also use a large wooden spoon. A few lumps in the batter should be fine. Now let it sit a few minutes in order to get the baking powder and bicarbonate of soda started and meanwhile heat up a griddle. It should be very hot or the pancake batter will spread out too much. If it's really hot, grease the pan using a bit of butter or oil and pour in some batter, 1/3 to 1/2 cup at a time. When bubbles appear it's time to flip the pancake. This is a large batch and was enough for the four of us, with some leftovers that will be eaten tomorrow. 

When water becomes a luxury

Living in a dry climate, and coming originally from a country where rain is described as "bad weather", you really get to appreciate rainfall. I'm kind of ashamed now that in the past, I used to call rainy weather "bad weather" too. Now I really do know better! Dry climates can be challenging in and of itself, but what if the rainfall ceases even more? And what if that happens already five years in a row? Well, that's when you've got a problem. 

This is what happens here now and it affects people in so many ways. The most noticeable, of course, is that the prices of produce have gone up tremendously. Not only produce though- also the prices of meat, eggs, and all animal products. Which is understandable, but the thing is that the majority of people living in this country aren't particularly well of financially so it's defenitely a challenge for a lot of people to get some simple groceries these days. Another way how it affects people is the water supply inside: in most areas, the tap water is off from 9 PM to 4 AM (or something like that). Fortunately for us, in our area we nearly always can use our tap water without any problems, although the water stream at times might be weak. But, at least we have water and don't have to worry about collecting enough buckets of water etc. So we're very grateful for that. The government has set a few rules for people for being frugal with the water, like not washing cars for the time being (which I find a bit silly, to be honest- usually people don't wash their car everyday, so it would be much more effective to advise not to take long showers, not washing up the dishes with running water, etc. But that's just my opinion.) I really don't understand how a government should even warn people to be careful not to use too much water. To me, it's just something logical. Even more so when there's such a scarcity of this precious resource. But apparently this doesnt work like that with other people I guess, so the government has laid out guidelines for what to do (and what not to) with water. 

Most people don't realise this, but even though it's a necessity, water can really become a luxury. Despite the current situation, I think it's a good thing to be reminded of the luxury of a tap with running water. 

For the past few weeks, however, it has started to rain! How wonderful is that! It's amazing how after all these months it's raining almost daily. My new "problem" is to squish all the laundry on our limited line drying space on the days that it isn't raining. But that's a problem I do want to take for granted in such a situation. Despite the rain, we still try to conserve as much water as we can. Even if it does rain now, the problem with drought isn't solved overnight, so it's still very important to be grateful for what we have and as a consequence, being very frugal with water. 

My annual most dreaded task

Spring is most people's favourite time of the year. It's my favourite season too; especially since my seasonal allergies haven't been as bad for the past few years. Spring is the time of birds chirping, beautiful (and edible) flowers such as dandelions and jasmine, the cat enjoying more time outdoors than indoors (which I don't necessarily enjoy more but he certainly does!) and above all the weather becomes so nice. We have relatively cold winters and very hot summers so spring is defenitely something we do enjoy. 

But there is this one task in spring that I really, really dread. 

And no, it's not spring cleaning. For years now already, every year I make a year's supply of garlic paste. Garlic is something I use in nearly every dish we eat, so throughout the year we go through a lot of garlic. I always hated it so much to have smelly cutting boards, knives, hands and garlic presses are such a hassle to clean. I once read that someone did the same with ginger and I was like 'I could try that too with garlic instead'. And so I did, and it was such a life safer! (At that time I didnt make a years supply, so it wasn't a mammoth task to tackle.) At the time we bought imported dried garlic, which wasn't the best tasting garlic ever. Currently we live in a place where there's always an abundance of fresh garlic during spring. Fresh garlic is much easier to peel. Above all, fresh garlic is much more gentle for one's hands- peeling a huge amount of dried garlic results in the same kind of burn as chopping hot peppers with your bare hands. Aside from the benefits of fresh garlic, it's still quite a chore that I don't particularly look forward to doing, yet at the same time I'd rather do this once a year kind of smelly and tiring thing than to chop and endlessly wash off all the garlic smells throughout the year. 

So here is my garlic supply waiting and staring at me :), and I'm ready to go, i'm telling myself no more procrastinating. After all the work is done I'll keep my garlic in the fridge (because after all the peeling I'm honestly just too tired!), blend it in the food processor and then transfer it to small containers. I reuse yogurt containers for this, since yogurt here comes in small portion sized containers, which I cover tightly with aluminium foil. Every few days I take out one container of garlic paste and let it defrost in the fridge. It's so convenient to have this on hand, and it's well worth a day or two of endlessly peeling garlic.