So here’s a little update for you on my New Years Resolutions. For those of you who don’t remember what they are (because really, why would you memorize my resolutions) here they are:
- I want to cook more with DRY beans and quit being so afraid of the soaking concept
- I want to plan dinners ahead of time to use more of my long term foods
- I want to find a way to help people who hate excel do an effective 3 month food supply plan even though the current excel file ROCKS! But I know, I know you don’t all love excel
Well good news – I’m doing alright. You’ll have to wait on the 3 month supply surprise just a little longer though. I have also been doing a lot better at planning dinners ahead of time.
And now for the beans. I have been into this humus kick for a little while now and buying it at the grocery store. I realized it was kind of full of preservative’ish junk and it was getting pricey. So I decided this would be my first guinea pig for using DRY beans. Turns out all my fears and anxiety were unnecessary. It was easy and DELICIOUS.
I got this recipe from the Safely Gathered In Blog. For full instructions, go to their blog. They have a lot of good pictures and instructions!
Roasted Red Pepper Hummus Recipe
2 cups soaked chickpeas or 1 can beans, drained
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 Tbsp Tahini (sesame seed oil)
2 cloves garlic or garlic powder
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 jar of roasted red peppers, drainedMince the garlic, put in food processor. Add the garbanzo beans, puree. Add the oil and juice, puree again. Drain and add roasted red peppers, add curry, blend.
If the beans are soft, then you’ll only have to process for a minute. When using soaked, but not cooked beans, process for five minutes or until smooth. Use as a spread or a dip.
MY FINDINGS:
I used olive oil instead of Tahini and liked it just fine. I also didn’t do the red peppers and curry powder, but I’m boring like that. Lemon Juice, Olive oil and Garlic are delicious enough all together for me.
You might want to try cooking the whole bag of beans, THEN splitting the beans into 4 or 5 ziploc baggies and freezing them for a quick treat on another day. 1 bag of beans got me 5 servings for around $2.50. Buying it pre-made from the store would have cost me over $20!
To make it an even yummier treat, I put hummus on reduced fat triscuit crackers and a piece of turkey pepperoni on top. I mean who doesn’t like pizza snacks! I am in love with making food storage healthy and cheap!
-Jodi Weiss Schroeder
http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net