I'm a little cuckoo for cranberries

Cranberries! In My Mouth! Aaaahhh!

I've been eating this morning, noon and night for the last few days. It's about 180 calories (omit oatmeal to reduce even further)

6oz fresh cranberries
1/2 cup unsweetened soy milk (may work with cow milk, but I suspect immediate curdling would happen)
1/4 cup oatmeal (I use steel cut)
Favorite sweetener to taste
Soak oatmeal in 1/4 cup hot water for 10 minutes.

To blender or food processor, add all ingredients, puree then whip.

End result should be a thick and frothy sweet and tart bit of deliciousness.

Shpritz!

If you don't have a Misto, go get several. They're about $8-$9 each. I have one for olive oil, one for sesame and a third for air freshener that I make with essential oils and water. It's great because you can still get a lot of oil flavor with absolute minimal coverage and calories. I do something similar with soy - I dilute heavy soy with some water in a spray bottle. It makes measuring much easier (I think it's about 20 squirts in 1 tbs).

Sparse cupboard musings

Egg whites
Cabbage
sesame oil
soy
Rice paper

Shred cabbage and spritz with soy and sesame oil (see next post)
Fry up egg whites

combine all and wrap well in rice paper. It's tastier than it sounds.

Who says it's tasty? Sesame!

I had a sesame seed disaster last week, and by disaster, I mean delicious! I've had this huge bag of raw, black sesame seeds that I picked up from my local Indian grocer, for quite some time. It was a lazy, rainy day, and I did not want to leave the house, but I despaired for hummus and baba ghanouj! I have plenty of chickpeas (and chickpea flour) and eggplant, but no tahini! The solution? Google tahini recipe.

Easy tahini:
Toast sesame seeds:
Method 1: Preheat oven to 350F. Place x amount of seeds on a baking sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the seeds are sizzling and become very aromatic.

Method 2: Heat a skillet to med-high heat. Add seeds and stir until you get to the end of Method 1.

Method 3: Combine Method 1 or Method 2 with just a touch of olive oil. Caution: seeds will pop akin to popcorn.

Let the seeds cool.

I used a mortar and pestle for the next step, but I don't see why you couldn't use a food processor.

Grind toasted seeds into a coarse paste. Depending on the amount of seeds you used, add enough olive oil to make your mixture somewhat creamy. Take a taste. You will die from sheer delight!

The hummus part is easy after this: mix tahini, mashed chickpeas, garlic, cumin, lemon juice and a touch of olive oil. Easier and better to use a food processor. Season as you will (I added tobasco and chipotle). Chill until chilly. Eat!


Now, this is where the disaster part comes in:
I had about 1/2 cup of the fresh tahini left over, so I started experimenting.

Note: My tahini is a deep gray color due to the fact that I used black sesame.

Experiment 1:
Tahini+
Cumin+
Brown sugar
=FatMan's own delicious halvah!

Experiment 2:
Tahini+
Sour salt+
Thyme+
=Za'atar! (less sour salt next time. Technically, za'atar is uncrushed sesame..this just brought out more flavor).

The rest of the weekend involved various odd experimentations, most involving mixing za'atar with other things. Everything, really; there's not much it doesn't complement.

More later

New recipes:

Nawlins Creecha Pot
Vegan Atrocity
Ham n' Clams
and
Bland