Hummus: Keeping Your Herbs in Check

Having fresh herbs within arm's reach is one of the best parts of summer, but don't turn your back for a minute!  Your basil will get woody; your dill will get flowery.  Those two love being clipped, so they can send out new growth.  Hummus is one way to use a lot of those herbs in between other delicious recipes.  You will need a food processor for sure.

I keep the basic ingredients for hummus year round, but adding fresh herbs in the summer makes something very simple sing.  One slight difference is that I never have tahini, so look elsewhere for a how-to that includes the tasty sesame seed paste.

3 cups cooked garbanzo beans, or 2 cans
juice from 1/2 of a lemon (Add as much as you want!)
2 garlic cloves (crushed and minced)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 to 2 teaspoons sea salt
¼ cup water reserved from the can of beans
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil*

*Below are the modifications I make to the basic plan.   I hold off on the olive oil because I use sun dried tomatoes packed in oil.   Some of the oil comes with them, so I eyeball how much of the other olive oil I should use to make up for the difference.

If you want to add Parmesan cheese, skip the salt.   You can adjust the salt to taste at the end of the blend.

Give two handfuls of sun dried tomatoes a rough chop and add them to the bowl.

Add a teaspoon of dried pepper flakes.

At this point, I add either dill or basil because those are the two that always need clipping.

If you are adding fresh dill, you can snip it with scissors.

If you are adding basil, you can do a quick chiffonade.

All of this goes for a spin in the food processor.  Add as much of the herbs as you want.  A spatula will help you scrape down the sides, so everything gets blended.

Hummus is a treat that's easy to share, so you may as well make a second batch while you've dirtied up the bowl of your food processor.  

Dreaming of Summer's Meat and Three

I'm starting to reminisce on last year's summer garden.  We had such great luck with tomatoes and peppers that I could just cry about it every time I'm in the produce section of the local markets.  Tomatoes aren't fit for consumption until after July 4th; I only eat grape tomatoes from the grocery store to carry me through the winter.  Sure, I use canned tomato products for soups and chillies and such, but I turn my nose up to any tomato larger than a grape after the season ends in the fall.

You'll know you're almost to the Farmer's Daughter when you see this beehive.

Last year we had the sprawlinest yellow pear tomato vines you ever did see.  We didn't stake, cage and trellis our plants at all the right times...and when we got those vines off of the dirt...it was on.  Those yellow pears could have easily trapped passing garden enthusiasts, if they stayed in one spot too long.

We picked those plants up at the Farmer's Daughter on 17, along with some black cherry tomatoes that had already been started by people with more patience than I have.  Being an heirloom, I didn't have high expectations for the black cherry, so I didn't leave her enough room.  She was gorgeous, a sight to behold.  She also produced fruit well into the fall.

Black cherry tomatoes in my McCarty pottery bowl from Merigold, MS.

Jalapenos and Hungarian wax peppers.

During the summer, there are so many wonderful sides, the main course doesn't have to me so, well, main.   I have a simple recipe for you that you can use when your seasonal fruits and vegetables take up a lot of room on your plate.  Get ready for Perfect Pan Roasted Chicken Thighs!  You'll need a cast iron skillet, skin-on chicken thighs, salt, pepper and oil...and a day where setting your oven to 475 F for about 18 minutes of cook time won't put you flat out on the kitchen floor.  In addition to the directions in this recipe, I trim down the excess chicken skin; there will be plenty left for the fat to render.  

Also, I highly recommend buying some handle mitts.  Cast iron is heavy, and I can never get a safe grip using a tea towel and my small hands.  I tend to burn oven mitts, so slipping a mitt on the handle works better for me.  If you don't have your family's cast iron, Le Creuset's enameled cast iron will put you in the poor house, but you'll still want to make a spot in your bed for your precious cookware...it's that awesome.  In the list of items-to-grab-on-your-way-out-of-your-burning-house, your Le Creuset will be in your top ten.  (T.J. Maxx sometimes sells this brand, but the sticker is still shocking, if you are not independently wealthy.)  If you frequent Cracker Barrel, they usually carry Lodge cast iron in their store shop, but I haven't tried that brand yet.

The Warmth of Other Suns

There is plenty of information out there for you to explore regarding Isabel Wilkerson's gorgeous book, The Warmth of other Suns.   I won't get too caught up in telling you what you may already know.   This title was recommended to us on the last day of The Most Southern Place on Earth, the seminar at Delta State that is the cornerstone of this blog.

I have to admit that books over 500 pages do not call my name when I'm at the library.   It's terrible for an English teacher to say that, I know.   It's the truth.   I favor non-fiction for the bulk of my free-choice reading, so Wilkerson's book had that going for it.   Also, my generous aunt and uncle sent me a birthday gift card to Barnes & Noble, so there wasn't a good reason not to buy it.   When it arrived, I found that the paperback cover was made out of that material that feels just right against my fingers...you know those Vintage books.   Man, it is a chunk!   I got started right away.

What is it about?   In short, the Great Migration.   Wilkerson spent 15 years of her life preparing this book for you, and it shows from the very first page to the last.   Her style is musical, flawless.   If you read the first page, you will know what I mean.   And the first page will beckon you to the second and so on...the book practically reads itself.

You will take it with you wherever you go.   You will sit with it in your dentist's office and find yourself in an orange orchard, a cotton field, a rocketing train, a cramped apartment, a buzzing casino or in the front seat of a 1949 Buick Roadmaster.   You will carry Warmth with you in your car and hope for stand-still traffic, an impromptu parade of very small turtles or a bridge opening, so you can sneak a few more pages in.   You will stash it by your bedside at night, so you can grab it when the sunshine returns the next morning.

The book is anchored by three African American southerners who were part of the Great Migration.  The three were chosen to represent the three main routes travelled by those who chose to leave their homes in search of a different life.   All three of these individuals were alive when Wilkerson was conducting her research for the book, so they told her their own stories.   Additionally, information gleaned from countless other interviews and hours of further research is woven into the telling of their tales.

You won't see a single stitch left behind by the author.   If I didn't know better, I would be inclined to believe Wilkerson if she told me that she grew the book with an enchanted seed that was planted in Delta dirt and left to grow on her kitchen windowsill.

Maybe you already know all there is to know about everything.   Well, I don't,   And you should read the book anyway, even if you think you do.   Your eyes will be opened to the basic complications of even planning to leave the South, particularly for sharecroppers.   You will also find out about the hardships folks faced once they arrived in other places.   Jim Crow had a broader reach than these Southerners could begin to imagine.

I certainly don't want to divulge any of the particulars to you, since you are going to read the book for yourself.   I would recommend visiting Wilkerson's website and nosing around.   Liking her on Facebook is also worth your while as she has links to related resources and thought-provoking, contemporary issues.   I don't want you to miss this one though, so I'm giving you the link right here.
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Right before I started typing this entry, I took a slice of tomato pie and fig tart to my neighbor, and just now, he came by to hand me a Tom Collins as a thanks.   I'm telling you because I'm pretty sure the magic from this book had something to do with it.   If your fig tree is ripe too, here's the recipe I started with, but the filling I used was simply wild cherry jam made by my boyfriend's mom, sliced figs, honey...and a touch of sea salt never hurts.   Don't skip the lemon zest in the crust though.   If you make it without the marscapone cheese, that means you can have some vanilla ice cream on the side.   I think I've shared the tomato pie recipe,  but here it is again in case your garden tomatoes are taking over your kitchen counters.   And how about some music while you cook?