So addictive!

Betsy and I spent a few days in Nashville before Thanksgiving last week and one of the restaurants that we decided to hit up was a vegetarian/vegan spot called The Wild Cow.

As you probably know, I’m neither vegetarian or vegan, but I do generally like vegetarian food. I love stuff like tofu and tempeh. I find it delicious if cooked correctly so I was excited to check this place out.

The meal was excellent. Betsy has some delicious sweet potato tacos and her mom had some lentils that were some of the best lentils I’ve had.

Honestly, the thing I thought was the best though was the appetizer that we got which was a cashew dip. I asked the server what was in it and after a long, lackadaisical stare he said:

“Umm… cashews.”

After I a gave him a Three Stooges like smack (sound), he also told me that there was chickpeas in it also.

That’s a start I guess. I took it from there. It’s possible that my version turned out even better than theirs…

Cashew Dip

Yield: Makes 4 Cups of dip.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1 can of chickpeas, drained
2 cups roasted cashews
1 lemon, juice only
3/4 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt
Paprika
Pita chips

Helpful Equipment:
Food Processor

Directions:

1) Drain chickpeas and add them to a bowl filled with cool water. Rub chickpeas together gently between your hands to remove their thin outer, tough skin. The skins should float to the top of the water and then you can scoop them off. You don't need to worry about getting them all.

2) Add chickpeas to a food processor with cashews and pulse until they are in a rough paste.

3) Drizzle in olive oil, lemon juice, and coconut milk and continue to process. If the dip is a bit thick, add in more coconut milk until it reached desired texture.

4) Season with salt.

5) Serve dip sprinkled with paprika. Serve with pita chips.

Dip Basics

This dip is really similar to a hummus, but I think the flavors are way more interesting than most hummus. It’s slightly sweet and creamy and great on pita chips or veggies.

The base of the dip is these two things.

The basics.

Basically, we just process these guys together, but before doing so, I recommend a step that some people are going to find annoying and skip.

That’s okay. But don’t blame me when your dip isn’t silky smooth.

The step is peeling the chickpeas. As you can see, chickpeas have this tough outer skin on them. It’s translucent so you can’t really see it until you get it off of the chickpeas.

Strange skins...

The problem I’ve found is that no matter how much you process, these things just never break down 100%. This is probably why your homemade hummus isn’t as smooth as store bought hummus.

The best way to peel the things is to drain them and dump them in a large bowl with cold water. Using your hands, rub the chickpeas together underwater and the skins will float to the surface.

Then you can just skim them off.

See this? You can’t process this into a smooth anything.

Imagine processing that...

I usually spend just a few minutes doing this and I shoot for 95% of the chickpeas. As you can see, I miss some.

Having some un-peeled ones won’t kill you. The slightly lighter chickpeas still have the skin on them and I just left it at this point.

Not perfect, but it'll work.

Making the Dip

Once you get that annoying step out of the way, just toss the chickpeas and cashews in a food processor and pulse them until they are in a rough paste.

Easy enough.

A good start.

Then add in your lemon and olive oil and continue to pulse it.

I froze time for this. No big deal.

The Secret Ingredient

The real key to this dip is to find a way to make it really creamy without adding actual cream to it (I tried to stick to the vegan thing).

Coconut milk was my answer and I think it worked better than actual cream would have worked honestly. It added the texture I was looking for and also gave the dip a very soft sweetness.

Make it creamy!

Pulse this all together and taste it for salt. It might need a pinch of salt depending on whether or not your cashews were salted or not.

If your dip is still really thick, feel free to add in a bit more coconut milk until it reaches the consistency you want.

Smooth stuff.

You can serve this as-is or sprinkle the dip with some paprika like I did for the first photo.

This is really addictive stuff.

This is good stuff.

This is one of those recipes that is awesome to serve at a party. People will be beating down your door for the recipe.

They make for excellent finger food and at least two of the three will transport very well. You’d probably only need to pick up a few items if you wanted to make some of these tonight!

Let’s get started!

I first heard of this recipe a few months ago and it has been sitting in the back of my brain for awhile now. I figured this was a good time to give it a shot. The real key to these is to make sure you use a really flavorful spice blend on them. The chickpeas take on a great texture when they’re roasted, but are a bit bland in the flavor department.

Roasted Chickpeas

- 1 (14.5 ounce) can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil, or just a drizzle
- 1 Tablespoon Kosher salt
- 1 Teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 Teaspoon paprika

This is really simple, but start by preheating your oven to 400 degrees and then pour out your drained and rinsed chickpeas onto a baking sheet. Bake them for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Halfway through, give them a stir just to make sure they are cooking evenly.

Meanwhile, in a bowl, mix together your spices. I didn’t end up using all of my spice mix above, but you might depending on how spicy you like it! You could also try cumin, curry powder, cinnamon, etc. Go crazy!

Once the 20 minutes is up, your chickpeas should be completely dry and starting to get a bit crispy. Add them to a bowl and toss them with the olive oil and a few pinches of spice mixture. You can adjust according to your tastes and add more later if you want.

Then back in the oven for another 20 minutes until they are crispy and delicious! They shouldn’t be crispy all the way through, but the outside should definitely be crispy.

Roasting some garbanzos!

I thought these were awesome. Betsy was skeptical, but I noticed the bowl getting smaller when I wasn’t looking…

Next on the appetizer list:

I know these sound bizarre, but trust me, they are delicious. They seriously taste like very, very thin potato chips. They are somewhat healthy and a perfect vessel for salt, which let’s face it, is the key indicator of a good chip.

Crispy Kale Chips (From KERF)

- 5-6 very large kale leaves, washed, dried, and ripped into large pieces
- 1 Tablespoon Olive oil
- Few pinches of kosher salt

Preheat your oven to 375. Meanwhile wash and dry your kale leaves. Make sure they are as dry as possible or else the leaves will just wilt and not crisp. If you have a salad spinner, give them a spin in that. I just used a few paper towels to dry mine though.

Then drizzle them with a bit of olive oil and a good pinch of salt and toss them in the oven. Mine took about 25 minutes to cook, but I think I added about twice as much oil as I needed so there was a lot of moisture in the pan. Halfway through cooking, I actually took out all my leaves and dried out my pan and then put them back in!

Also, don’t salt these things like you would potato chips. They don’t need nearly as much salt. They are super-thin.

Check on them every 10 minutes or so as they cook and move them around a bit if they are stacked on top of each other. When they are almost entirely crispy and browned around the edges move them too a bowl.

Nice.

These are shockingly amazing. It doesn’t even taste like you are eating kale. It tastes like a yummy chip. I’m fairly certain I could eat a whole bussel of kale (probably like 6 servings) if it was prepared like this.

The only two problems that these awesome chips have are: 1) They are basically impossible to transport. I think if you tried to take them anywhere they would just crumble. They are super-thin and pretty fragile. 2) Keep a toothpick on hand. They leave bits of dried kale in your teeth! Totally worth it though.

And last but not least:

Cashews are awesome. But cashews that are coated in a sugary glaze packed with spicy red pepper flakes are even more awesome.

Spicy and Sweet Cashews (From a Well-Seasoned Cook Recipe)

- 2 Cups raw, unsalted cashews (I think you could start with unsalted, roasted cashews and skip the roasting step entirely.)
- 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 Teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1/4 Cup light corn syrup
- Few pinches of kosher salt

This has the most ingredients of any appetizer so far, coming it at 5! Still pretty straightforward though. If you start with raw cashews, roast them in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes until they are a light brown. Don’t over toast them because they will toast more as they cook later. (Top right photo is toasted.)

Then in a large skillet, heat up the veggie oil and add all of your red pepper flakes. Let that cook for a minute or two over medium-high heat to make sure the oil is all infused with the spice. Then add all your cashews and stir to evenly distribute the oil and peppers! (Bottom left photo)

Next, add your corn syrup to the cashews and cook it for a few minutes. The corn syrup should bubble and start to glaze over the cashews. Keep stirring them to make sure you get an even coating. You’ll know when your cashews are basically done because you will have a pretty dry pan. Everything will be stuck to the nuts.

Then pour your cashews back onto a backing sheet and spread them out to cool (bottom right).

Cashew overload.

Once they are cooled you should be able to break them up and stick them in a bowl! I think I used too much corn syrup in my version pictured above (I used closer to 1/2 cup I think) and they were a bit too sticky. Still tasted good though!

Anyway, there ya go! Three appetizers which just a few ingredients! These could be ready for your party tonight in just a few minutes and with very little work.

Be safe tonight everyone and have a Happy New Year’s Eve!

Ok. Sorry. Back to reality. I’ve been itching to make granola bars for a few weeks now and finally did it last weekend. Turns out that once you have the basics down for homemade granola, it’s pretty easy to make granola bars. Shocking I know.

I was in a peanut butter mood so I used that as a base flavor for the whole thing.

Better than store bought. No doubt.

So there are two basic parts to this recipe: First, make granola. Second, make granola bars. Luckily both steps are really easy and this recipe makes about 12-14 granola bars which are great to have on hand throughout the week.

Peanut Butter Granola Bars

Yield: 8x8 baking dish.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour + cooling time

Ingredients:

3 Cups rolled oats (can't use the instant stuff)
1 Cups various seeds and nuts (I used 2/3 Cups sunflower seeds, almonds, and cashews for this version)
1/2 Cup dried fruit (cranberries, cherries, etc)
1/2 Tablespoon cocoa powder (optional)
1/2 Teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 Cup Honey
1/4 Cup Peanut Butter
Pinch of salt

Granola Bars:
The above granola recipe
3/4 Cup honey
1/2 Cup peanut butter
1/2 Cup Brown sugar
1/4 Cup neutral oil (grapeseed or corn works well)

Directions:

1) Roughly chop nuts and seeds and add them to oats. Add cinnamon and cocoa powder and a pinch of salt.

2) After the oats, nuts, seeds and seasonings are combined, stir together the honey and peanut butter in a separate bowl.

3) Pour that mixture into granola and stir really well to combine. Make sure everything is really evenly distributed. Spread out the mixture onto a rimmed baking sheet.

4) Cook at 350 for about 30 minutes and stir them every 5 minutes.

5) After the granola has turned a nice brown color it is done! Pull it out and let it cool.

6) Add dried fruit.

7) For bars, mix all the ingredients except the granola in a medium saucepan and put it over medium heat. Stir it just until it starts to bubble and all of the ingredients are melted.

8) Pour it straight over the granola! Mix this up well again.

9) Pack it into a square baking dish. Push down on it with a spatula to even it out and compress the oats

10) Stick this in the fridge for at least 2 hours and then you can slice it up!

11) If the granola is really hard, you can let it sit at room temperature for 15-30 minutes and it will soften up a bit.

Adapted from How to Cook Everything.

The benefits of a full pantry.

What’s kind of nice about keeping a well-stocked pantry is it very frequently pays what I like to call pantry dividends. This recipe is a case in point. For me, all I had to do for this recipe was buy dried cranberries. I had every other ingredient needed.

Making the granola

Granola is really simple to make and you are completely missing out if your buying the store bought stuff. It’s just so awesome to be able to customize it to whatever tastes you want.

To make it, roughly chop your nuts and seeds if necessary and add them to your oats.

Nuts and oats.

Next add your cinnamon and cocoa powder if your using them and a pinch of salt.

Please note the below photo where I made the mistake of adding my dried fruit. You aren’t supposed to add that until after you bake the granola. That’s what I get for trying to make granola, take photos, and yell at the Washington Redskins all at the same time.

A mild mistake.

After your oats, nuts, seeds and seasonings are combined, stir together your honey and peanut butter in a separate bowl.

Resist eating it like a soup.

I could just eat this with a spoon.

Then pour that mixture into your granola and stir really well to combine. Make sure everything is really evenly distributed.

Then spread out the mixture on two rimmed baking sheets.

Looks like oatmeal, smells like peanut butter.

Cooking the granola

Cook these sheets at 350 for about 30 minutes and stir them every 5 minutes. If you don’t stir them every few minutes, the peanut butter will burn and that would be very sad.

After your granola has turned a nice brown color it is done! Pull it out and let it cool. NOW you can add your dried fruit. If you are like me and you happen to mess that up, it’s okay. Just be sure to stir everything well while it’s cooking. You run the extra danger of the dried fruit burning.

Mine turned out fine though even with my mess up.

Keep an eye on this stuff.

Making Bars

The only thing you need to make bars now is a light syrup that will hold all of that delicious granola together. You can also take this as an opportunity to add even more peanut butter flavor to the party.

Mix all the ingredients except the granola in a medium saucepan and put it over medium heat. Stir it just until it starts to bubble and all of the ingredients are melted.

Then pour it straight over your granola!

The Gooey stuff.

Mix this up well again. It will be more gooey than the first batch. Pack it into a square baking dish. Push down on it with a spatula to even it out and compress the oats. Just light pressure will do. No need to show off the guns or anything.

Press it into a pan.

Stick this in your fridge for at least 2 hours and then you can slice it up!

If the granola is really hard, you can let it sit at room temperature for 15-30 minutes and it will soften up a bit.

Very tasty.

You can keep these in the fridge for a week or two without a problem. When I first take one of these bars out of the fridge, it’s rock hard. But after about 10 minutes it is softer but still crunchy. Just like I like them!

And the peanut butter flavor is great. It’s amazing how just a little bit of peanut butter can really flavor a lot of food.

You may note that I only used half of the granola for the bars. You can save the other half in a sealed plastic bag to either make more bars or just eat like cereal.

This is the kind of thing that I really believe is so easy to integrate into your weekly or monthly schedule and I think you’ll be absolutely shocked at how much crunchier, tastier, and healthier they are than 99% of the ones you buy in the store. Give it a shot sometime!

1. How seriously, unbearably hot it is in DC in August. I am a cold weather person. This sweltering heat is not to my liking.

2. How much I love cucumbers.

Luckily, both of these things factored into this delicious chilled cucumber soup I made over the weekend.

Simple and refreshing.

This soup is really nothing fancy and while the original recipe calls for cubanelle peppers, I’m very convinced that you could use a bell pepper or a jalapeno if you wanted a bit more heat. The cubanelle is a nice pepper though if you can find it. The original recipe says they use it mainly because it starts with a “C”.

Cucumber Soup with Cubanelles

Yield: Serves 4-6.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes + chill time

Ingredients:

3 large cucumbers, peeled and seeded
1/2 cubanelle pepper, seeded and diced
2 Cups water (The original called for 2 1/2 Cups but mine was looking pretty watery so I cut it down a bit)
1/3 Cup olive oil
1/2 Cup cashews, roughly chopped
2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
1-2 garlic cloves
Salt and Pepper

Garnish:
Diced tomatoes
Diced cubanelle pepper (the other half you have left over will work great)

Helpful Equipment:
Blender (I like this blender. It doesn't have a lot of fancy settings, but it works like a charm.)

Directions:

1) Peel off the cucumbers’ skin, slice them in half horizontally and scoop out the seeds, and then roughly chop into 1/2 inch sections.

2) Dice the cubanelle a bit finer just to make sure they get blended really well. You can leave the skin on for them.

3) Very roughly chopped the garlic and cashews.

4) Put all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend it up! This may require two batches.

5) After the soup is blended, be sure to taste for salt and pepper.

6) Stick the soup in the fridge for probably three hours (or overnight) to make sure it’s chilled really well.

7) Garnish the soup with some diced tomato, more diced cubanelle pepper, and a few drizzles of olive oil.

Adapted from Gourmet Sept. 2009.

Since there are only a few ingredients in this soup, each of them really comes through. Especially the cashews in my mind. The cucumber kind of acts as a backdrop and is always there, but the cashews give a great flavor and feel to the soup. I’m not sure that it would be anywhere near as good without them.

The vinegar gives some necessary bite also, but you could substitute white wine or maybe even balsamic if you didn’t have red wine vinegar on hand.

Cubanelles are the ugly duckling of peppers.

Prepping the Veggies

Everything is really easy to prep considering we are going to blend it all together.

For the cucumbers, peel off the skin, slice them in half horizontally and scoop out the seeds, and then roughly chop into 1/2 inch sections.

No skin. No seeds.

For the cubanelles, I diced them a bit finer just to make sure they get blended really well. You can leave the skin on for them. I also very roughly chopped the garlic and cashews.

No need for perfection here.

Blending it up!

I had to do mine in two batches which I recommend to avoid a blender explosion. It blends up really nicely.

But Nick I don’t have a blender! Well, if you diced everything really finely, you would end up with a kind of hearty cucumber gazpacho that would still be very tasty. It’s just way more work.

You could also invest in a food mill which will give you a must heartier, more rustic final product.

I love my blender.

After the soup is blended, be sure to taste for salt and pepper. If it isn’t salted well this soup can be a bit bland.

Cool it down

There is nothing like a lukewarm bowl of cucumber broth to really refresh the senses. (Sarcasm.) You’ll want to stick this soup in the fridge for probably three hours to make sure it’s chilled really well.

In fact, overnight would be even better.

I garnished the soup with some diced tomato, more diced cubanelle pepper, and a few drizzles of olive oil.

Artsy drops of oil.

Betsy and I ate this two days in a row and not only was it incredibly easy to make, but it was very refreshing. After a long day in the sun it great to have a nice bowl of this to come home to.

Even if soups intimidate you, this is a great one to try out. Especially during these dog days of summer.

Turns out I was right:

You have to make this if you are a granola fan.

After doing some research and looking at MANY different recipes, I realized that granola is kind of like one of those “Make-a-bear” workshops. I’ve never actually been in one of those shops but I think I get the general idea. You go in and pick out your teddy bear, your outfit, and your characteristics with the goal of giving the drab old teddy bear some personality. You get to make it “yours”. Genius marketing if you ask me.

Granola is very similar. There are dozens of variations and probably hundreds of additions that you can use to give it some personal flare. You can go on the cheap with some basic rolled oats, honey, and cinnamon, or you can get extremely luxurious.

I chose somewhere in the middle, but still started with plain old rolled oats.

Rollin' with the oats.

I used Mark Bittman’s recipe from this book because I trust him. I made a few alterations, but kept the proportions the same.

Homemade Granola
- 6 cups rolled oats
- 2 cups various nuts/seeds. I used 1/2 cup of each of the following: Sunflower seeds, flax seeds, chopped cashews, sliced almonds.
- 1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
- 1 Teaspoon Ghirardelli’s cocao powder (my addition)
- 1 cup honey. I probably did closer to 1 1/8 cups. Adjust according to your tastes.
- 1 cup golden raisins
- 1 cup dried cranberries

These are a great addition to anything.

Add all of your nuts and seeds to your rolled oats and mix it up really well. Some other options you could use include walnuts, pecans, peanuts, hazelnuts, Macadamias, pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, pistachios, and on and on and on.

Don’t add more than two or two and a half cups of this stuff though or they will overpower the granola.

This bowl just got way healthy.

Then put in whatever spices you would like along with your sticky stuff. I chose cinnamon, coca powder, and honey. Again though, there are tons of options: anise, vanilla, allspice, nutmeg, poppy seed, maple syrup, or molasses just to name a few possibilities.

Again though, don’t over do it. I would choose two or maybe three spice additions and a base. If you add to many then it starts to taste like nothing at all. Choose wisely, young backpacker.

Honey makes oats into granola.

Now for really the only hard part of this recipe: stirring. This stuff will be pretty thick and you want to make sure that all of your honey and spice is evenly distributed. Stir it for a few minutes to make sure it is well-combined. Don’t worry, dude, you can’t over-stir granola.

Then pour out your mixture onto a baking sheet and spread it out to form one even layer. If you use the above recipe you will either need two baking sheets or to do it in batches. It’s a lot.

Miles and miles of granola.

You want to cook this at 350 for somewhere between 25-30 minutes. My first tray I cooked for 30 minutes and it was borderline burnt. My second tray I cooked for 27 minutes and it was spot on perfect. I think this varies depending on oven and ingredients you use.

I would start watching it pretty closely after 25 minutes. The last thing you want to do is burn a whole batch of this stuff!

Once it is done pull it out but leave it on your baking sheets to cool. Then sprinkle on all of your dried fruit or half of it if you are working it batches. It is semi-important to add the fruit while the granola is still hot so the flavors start to blend.

Then let it cool completely and store it in an airtight container. The stuff will last for a very long time which is good because it makes a bunch.

This recipe makes like 40 of these.

One reason why I like this recipe oh so much is because granola is expensive. In DC, one 13 ounce box of granola in the store costs $4.19. This entire recipe costs me $18 and made the equivalent 3.5 boxes of granola. While the cost appears to be more for the homemade version, I have nuts, seeds, and dried fruit left over to make a second batch if I wanted to. All I would need is the oats which run about $1.30/lb.

I had a bowl of this for breakfast this morning and I must say that it was very delicious. Maybe there’s something to this granola craze after all.

If you know any hippies or wilderness wanderers you might want to use the below links to share this with them.