Hummus

Are any of you familiar with the song I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas? I discovered it this year and immediately fell in love with it; as a joke I sent a link to my mom telling her that was what I wanted for Christmas.

Little did I know she would actually get me one…until I find this beauty wrapped up under our Christmas tree

She’s adorable isn’t she?

My mom tells me her name is Pamela…I might have to change that 😉

Hippo apart, today I wanted to share with you a hummus recipe: I really like hummus, but for some reason I never seemed to get good results with my recipes: too garlicky, too bland, too everything-but-hummus. But I desperately wanted some hummus to have on Christmas ( since everyone else was having meat, I needed to find a good substitute), so I took out a cookbook that had a hummus recipe and used it as a base to make my own recipe.

And I finally have a succesful hummus recipe!

Inspired by Horn of the Moon Cookbook 

1 1/2 cup dried chickpeas

2 garlic cloves

1 onion

1 medium carrot

1/2 cup tahini

1 cup water

1/2 cup lemon

2 tbsp tamari

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Soak the chickpeas overnight, then cook for aprox. 1 hour, or until tender.

Chop the garlic cloves, onion and carrot.

Toss everything in a food processor (if it’s big enough) or, like I did, in a big bowl, mix well and process in more steps.

That’s it! easy-peasy.

One awesome way to have hummus? With roasted potatoes: they go perfect together!

And you can bet that bowl of hummus with the grissini were my lunch, along with a red bell pepper 😉

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Chocolate Boxes

In case you ever wondered what 772 chocolate truffles look like… wonder no more 🙂

As I told you in my previous post, my sister and I were pretty busy last week making these as Christmas Gifts for all our relatives. Every year we do something (usually some kind of cookie) to bring to family gatherings, but this year we decided to step it up a notch and, well, the result was awesome!

My sister, Cristina, spent her whole summer at a pastry campus at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Pâtisserie in France, and is now working as an apprentice in a Pastry shop in Milan, so most of the recipes we used (and some equipment) were kindly borrowed. We had a few hectic days, but I had tons of fun: I learned how to temper chocolate, fill the moulds, cover coconut in chocolate…I had a blast, and am kind of sad it’s all over! But I did take a few pictures for you to enjoy 🙂

        

  

We put 2 of each truffles in cardboard boxes with a note on each and an “instruction sheet”, explaining what was in each truffle, and this was the final look

  

I’m happy to say they were a success!

On a different note, I would like to thank Kristina, editor at Be @ Home, for giving me a “Creative Chef Award”; I never thought someone would appreciate my blog so much, and this award made for one happy girl!

 

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Zucchini Cream

I’ve been meaning to write a post for a while now, but life’s been so hectic these last few days, that I haven’t had the time! My older sister and I have been making chocolate truffles as presents for Christmas, and it has been very time consuming! More on this later :D.

What today’s post is about is one of my favourite dishes: zucchini cream.

It’s a super easy dish to make, yet it’s full of deliciousness…and, well, veggies 🙂

It’s really a fool-proof recipe: the ingredients are simple, and a little change in their amount does absolutely no harm! Also you can change the amount of water to add, depending on the consistency you’d like to achieve.

Here we go with the recipe!

serves 2

2 carrots, finely diced

2 onions, chopped

2 celery stalks, finely chopped

2 tbsp olive oil

5-6 zucchini

1/2 cup water*

1/3 cup basil

salt and pepper to taste

* adding only 1/2 cup water resulted in a dip-like consistency of the zucchini cream. If you want it more soup-like, another 1, 1 1/2 cups of water should be added (until the zucchini are slightly covered in water).

In a sauce pan sauté on medium flame the chopped onions, carrots and celery with the oil for 10 minutes, until tender and translucent. Meanwhile, chop the zucchini.

Add the zucchini to the sauce pan, then the water, cover and let cook for 20-30 minutes, or until the zucchini are tender mushy. Add the basil, salt and pepper and blend away for a few minutes until pureed with immersion blender, food processor, blender…whatever you have!

As I previously said, mine resulted in a dip-like consistency, which was actually fun to eat with bread :D. But if you are looking for a veggie soup that will warm you up in no time in those cold winter days, I suggest adding more water.

 

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