Recipes / Food - Drink

[BenG]

I just use the blender I bought to make frozen margaritas.
Sometimes I make it with Asian sesame oil.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by BenG

I just use the blender I bought to make frozen margaritas.
Sometimes I make it with Asian sesame oil.

you know, every time my friends and i go to that mexican restaurant, i think to myself i should definitely get a blender so i can make those frozen margaritas at home whenever i want (god those things are delicious !). add hummous to the list and that might be the clincher. i definitely feel a blender in my future. i'll try the asian sesame oil, too.

[vivaldirules]

I just cut up some sweet potatoes (while making a double batch of my black been salsa and a batch of my lentil soup). I love sweet potatoes raw. Just peel one, cut it into convenient sticks the size of french fries or carrot sticks, put them in cold water for half an hour to remove some of the starch, rinse them, dry them, and then put them in the refrigerator in a plastic bag with some holes in it. Eat them like carrot sticks. They have a great flavor.

[kindlekitten]

is tahini sesame paste?

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

is tahini sesame paste?

yep. it adds a sort of a "warm" flavour to the hoummous (i can't think of another way to describe it), and also acts as a sort of emulsifier.

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

I just cut up some sweet potatoes (while making a double batch of my black been salsa and a batch of my lentil soup). I love sweet potatoes raw. Just peel one, cut it into convenient sticks the size of french fries or carrot sticks, put them in cold water for half an hour to remove some of the starch, rinse them, dry them, and then put them in the refrigerator in a plastic bag with some holes in it. Eat them like carrot sticks. They have a great flavor.

hm. i recently bought some sweet potatoe purée on my grandmother's recommendation (we were talking about squash, and she went on to sweet potatoes, and 2 days later i saw the purée in the shop and thought "why not") and i didn't like it much. i felt like it couldn't decide whether it was sweet or savoury, but not in a good way. i was planning to mix the rest of it into a soupe or something with a lot of other things to mask the taste. maybe i'll try them raw just to be sure ; i suppose if i don't like them that way either, the soupe option is still there.

your black bean salsa and lentil soupe are making me hungry though. damned ! i had my dinner already.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

yep. it adds a sort of a "warm" flavour to the hoummous (i can't think of another way to describe it), and also acts as a sort of emulsifier.


.

I LOVE hummus and would like to make it more often. I keep both canned and dried garbanzo beans on hand all the time, I also normally have a rather significant amount of sesame seeds around for baking. I wonder if I put the seeds into a blender if that will make a good enough paste to use

[BenG]

I like them baked and served with a pat of butter.

I also like sweet potato pie, sweet potato casserole, sweet potato fries, sweet potato cheesecake, and candied yams.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by BenG

I like them baked and served with a pat of butter.

I also like sweet potato pie, sweet potato casserole, sweet potato fries, sweet potato cheesecake, and candied yams.

so you're saying you think they're not that bad ?

maybe i'll try turning that purée into something else. my grandmother loves them too, they can't be that bad. i dunno, they just didn't do it for me that other time.

[kindlekitten]

*sigh* I wish I liked sweet potatoes, yams, more squashes etc. as it is I can deal with the small squashes like zuchini, crook neck, spaghetti but most of the others are just too darn sweet for me.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

*sigh* I wish I liked sweet potatoes, yams, more squashes etc. as it is I can deal with the small squashes like zuchini, crook neck, spaghetti but most of the others are just too darn sweet for me.

i love squashes. i'm currently experimenting with butternut squash at the recommendation of verencat. i had to order it special from my four seasons guys. it's delicious. i'm hoping it's making a comeback ; i've never seen it in the four seasons shops but the guy said that after years of total lack of interest he's getting requests for it now, only from young people, which i find encouraging. i'm hoping it will be like potimarron and go from totally unknown to ubiquitous within the next 2 years or so. i talked about it with a friend of mine and he said he thought it was unsurprising that the older generation didn't want any squash ; there was still the memory of war rations and "poor food" (pumpkin most notably is apparently "poor food" that was abundantly available during the war, so the old people are all sick of it and never want to see another damned pumpkin), and after that during the "Glorious 30" everyone wanted the more leisurely lifestyle which involved spending much less time in the kitchen, and let's face it, squash takes a LONG time to cook.

[kindlekitten]

that's interesting that it is so elusive there. you trip over it everywhere here. it takes a long time, but it doesn't need to be messed with that often. I've done acorn squash in the microwave and that is pretty darn speedy!

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

that's interesting that it is so elusive there. you trip over it everywhere here. it takes a long time, but it doesn't need to be messed with that often. I've done acorn squash in the microwave and that is pretty darn speedy!

well... i imagine you don't have the wartime stigma so much over there, which is probably a big part of it. also i suspect that in some regions it's easier to find ; when i searched for recipes for it online i found quite a lot but all of them were from the province (and canada, also, but again, canada probably doesn't have such strong memories of the war). i think it's coming back ; a few years ago i had never seen nor heard of a potimarron, and now they're everywhere. and the four seasons guy said he was getting requests for butternut sqash from the younger generation now, so it might become easier to find. i hope so.

i don't know about acorn squash : another one for me to search out.

[zelda_pinwheel]

i looked up the acorn squash ; it looks like the green pumpkins to me, and it turns out it's in the Cucurbita pepo family which is the same as the green pumpkins and as the pâtisson (pattypan). i just tried a pâtisson (the four seasons guy recommended it since i love the butternut) but i'm not so much a fan, although i suspect it can be good cooked differently. however if you don't like butternut because it's too sweet you should try the pattypan, it's not as sweet. plus they're so pretty.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by BenG

Here's my hummus recipe.

1 (16-ounce can) chickpeas, well-rinsed and drained
3 to 6 cloves garlic
3/4 tsp salt
3 to 4 Tbs olive oil
Juice of 2 to 3 lemons
2 to 3 Tbs tahini, well-mixed

[...]

Looks very nice. I've met several who claim that good hummus does not need tahini, but they are so wrong.

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

I LOVE hummus and would like to make it more often. I keep both canned and dried garbanzo beans on hand all the time, I also normally have a rather significant amount of sesame seeds around for baking. I wonder if I put the seeds into a blender if that will make a good enough paste to use

You could make tahini that way if you have enough seeds. It's best to roast them a bit before, but beware that the darker you roast them the more bitter the seed paste will be.

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

well... i imagine you don't have the wartime stigma so much over there, which is probably a big part of it. also i suspect that in some regions it's easier to find ; when i searched for recipes for it online i found quite a lot but all of them were from the province (and canada, also, but again, canada probably doesn't have such strong memories of the war). i think it's coming back ; a few years ago i had never seen nor heard of a potimarron, and now they're everywhere. and the four seasons guy said he was getting requests for butternut sqash from the younger generation now, so it might become easier to find. i hope so.

i don't know about acorn squash : another one for me to search out.

I think *war time* stigma may be a French notion? It's my impression that the widespread use of pumpkins and winter squash may simply be more American.

It's difficult to say, but I've asked both my parents (born in '33) about pumpkin, and both are only aware of it as pickled pumpkin. That's also the only kind of pumpkin I saw as a child and until a few years ago (born in '72).

I've only in recent years started to encounter fresh pumpkins at the grocer - and only hokkaido pumpkin and winter squash - and it's still a rare and seasonal vegetable. However, Scandinavia is very conservative with regards to vegetables, no doubt the short, cold summers have something to do with this, but changes in our vegetable diet tends to come really slow. Personally, I'm glad to have the choice between two kinds of pumpkin rather than none this Autumn - but then I also like to discover new recipes and new foods.

[BenG]

Pumpkin is usually used for dessert here in the U.S. I think it was Garrison Keillor that said the best pumpkin pie you ever ate isn't much different from the worst.