Sunday, August 03, 2014

Cilantro-palooza

I get a little food happy on the weekends, since I usually pass through at least one farmer's market and start getting delusional about all the amazing meals I could make with pounds and pounds of organic vegetables.

This past week I took a cooking class, and the takeaway was that there is still so much that I have to learn, no matter how mad scientist I sometimes get in the kitchen. But, thanks in large part to the book project I've been working on, I've become quite aware of what's in food (get away from me, Yellow #5!) and am much more interested how things are prepared. Not that I was ever much a processed food kind of gal, but I've become much more mindful.


This weekend I ended up with way too much cilantro from the farmer's market. Seriously, what am supposed to do with all this? It's the size of my head. And it was only $1.50.


Since Saturday I have been trying to find things to do with it. I've mixed it in with salads and found a salmon recipe that uses it in the glaze. Then I remembered that years ago Tribe Hummus used to make a cilantro flavored hummus, which I loved. They've discontinued it, but I figured recreating it would be a good way to get rid of some of this cilantro.

Making hummus is relatively easy, but it involves constant tweaking. There's no need for a recipe (chick peas, blender, olive oil, and anything else you want to throw in there.) Pretty much every recipe online, though, will tell you to put in half a cup of lime juice into cilantro hummus, but I can assure you that is far too much.

This was my finished product. It's a little green, but in a good way. And it tastes better than anything Tribe ever put out. (Just don't spread it on graham crackers. That's the opposite of a good food pairing.)


It's important to make your own snack food, especially when this exists.

And...most important. According to the TED Talk below, cooking is what has helped the human brain evolve beyond that of other primates.