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gastrogirl:

beet hummus with veggies and pita chips.

Beet Hummus?! Sign me up!

Beet Hummus
adapted from Simply Recipes 

Ingredients
1/2 pound beets (about 4 medium sized beets, tops removed and scrubbed clean 
2 Tbsp tahini sesame seed paste
Juice and zest of one orange
1 small clove garlic, chopped
1 Tbsp ground cumin
sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Wrap beets together in foil and place in a 350 degree oven for about one hour or until soft when pierced with a fork. Allow to sit until cool enough to handle, then slide off beet skins. Place beets and remaining ingredients in a medium bowl. Using an immersion blender (or place ingredients in bowl of the food processor) puree all ingredients together. Add additional seasoning to taste. Serve with an assortment of vegetables and pita chips. 

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peterwknox:

Breakfast of Champions – Lapham’s Quarterly

HST:

I like to eat breakfast alone, and almost never before noon; anybody with a terminally jangled lifestyle needs at least one psychic anchor every twenty-four hours, and mine is breakfast. In Hong Kong, Dallas, or at home—and regardless of whether or not I have been to bed—breakfast is a personal ritual that can only be properly observed alone, and in a spirit of genuine excess. The food factor should always be massive: four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crêpes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned-beef hash with diced chilies, a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of key lime pie, two margaritas and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert…Right, and there should also be two or three newspapers, all mail and messages, a telephone, a notebook for planning the next twenty-four hours, and at least one source of good music…all of which should be dealt with outside, in the warmth of a hot sun, and preferably stone naked.

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foodspotting:

We had a blast throwing our 2nd annual Wok+Wine event in San Francisco last night! Thanks to everyone who came. If you have friends in New York, let em know we have a few spots left for our party in Tribeca tomorrow. Click here for tickets.

Photos courtesy of Foodspotting visual designer Chris Connolly.

I would 100% be attending this if I did not have a 30th birthday of a dear friend’s to attend.  Get your tickets now!!

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3 Ingredient Ice Cream Cake

Once again I was at my Grandmother’s and I needed to whip up a dessert with little-to-no prep time. It was hot as blazes outside and as I try to have ice cream at least once a day during the summer, who wouldn’t go bonkers for ice cream cake?

Ingredients: 

4 cups gluten-free rice krispies (I used Gorilla Munch)

8oz semi-sweet chocolate, chopped

1/2 gallon whatever ice cream is in your freezer

Take the ice cream out of your freezer and set on counter to soften while you prepare the rest of your ingredients. Using a pie plate, or in my case an angelfood cake pan with a removable bottom, lightly grease/butter and set aside. Melt chocolate in a large microwaveable bowl in 30 second intervals. Once melted, stir in rice krispies, until fully incorporated. Press chocolate-krispie mixture into the sides of your pan & evenly distribute. Place pan in freezer for 5-10 minutes. Meanwhile, prep your choice of decoration, in my case I melted about 2oz of semi-sweet chocolate & 2nd of white chocolate. Remove pan from freezer & scoop softened ice cream into pan, evenly distributing. Decorate & return pan to freezer. Freeze for at least 20 minutes before serving. You can slice the cake in the pan, or if it has a removable bottom, it should pop right out and look similar to the cake pictured above.

Enjoy!

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noraleah:

“‘Pass the Ketchup’ Could Bring Surprises”: Bringing back diversity to Ketchup (NYT)

Ok, two things about ketchup. My favorite thing that Malcolm Gladwell has ever written is “The Ketchup Conundrum,” in which he basically argues that Heinz is King because it has a supposedly ideal balance of sweet, salt, sour, bitter, and umami. I don’t happen to agree with that but no matter — the article is a fascinating exploration of what it takes to win over the American palate (Grey Poupon did it when naysayers claimed Americans wouldn’t eat anything but good ol’ yellow mustard).

Coming around to the second thing, as Tom says, below, ketchup is perhaps the only native American condiment and back in the day it had many iterations (it wasn’t even necessarily made with tomatoes). Four years ago, in honor of ketchup’s noble place in the history of American food, I held a Tomato Bee in my dad’s community garden and we made a vat of catsup loosely based on a recipe from 1871 (right there in the garden!). We then made three flavored ketchups: white and red balsamic, sherry, and spicy green pepper. (Which all makes me feel light-years ahead of the NYT. Not for the first time….)

It was a lot of work (and arguably not the best use of glorious late-summer tomatoes) but those ketchups were divine. We enjoyed them all fall and winter. And then they were gone. 😦 

series-of-contradictions:

I despise Heinz and Hunts.  Not just on Hot Dogs, which is an abomination but on anything.  There are few things in this world I can’t stand to eat or even smell, but commercial tomato ketchup is one of them.  I’m insulted when waiters put a bottle of ketchup on our table and I’m embarrassed when this happens overseas.  I applaud Jose Andres’ drive to bring back the American tradition of having many different flavors of ketchup.  Ketchup’s roots are in anchovies, like many of the world’s condiments were.  I think a return to these roots might make the condiment more palatable. 

I am an unabashed glutton for condiments!  Can there ever be enough dipping sauces?

Props to Nora for referencing “The Ketchup Conundrum,” an article that I am constantly telling people to read (it’s worth it, seriously) as it is a fascinating foray into taste preferences.

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noraleah:

‘Food raves’ are the future of eating, new report claims 

Leave it an organization that pretentiously calls itself the “The Future Laboratory” to come up the term “food raves” to describe what have been known for generations as  ”potlucks” and “having people over for dinner” and “street fairs.” And they are way behind on their prediction that nostalgic packaging and old recipes will see a revival. Where the hell have they been for the past 5 years?

That said, the social networking side is mildly interesting — though again, they’re late on it. I met all my supper club friends through Tumblr — three and a half years ago. (I really resent the fact that people get paid to predict trends, and so anemically at that.)

But I do like Tom’s point, below, about communal kitchens. 

series-of-contradictions:

An expansion of the Supper Club concept, social eating and sharing is integral to reintroducing food as not just a chore to be done quickly, in solitude and without enjoyment.  When we share food and eat socially, we by extension eat slower, healthier and improve our mental health while improving our physical selves as well.

I’d love to see venues that catered to this trend; open kitchen spaces where people could easily congregate, cook and eat together.  This is especially important in large urban areas where the premium value on space makes urban agriculture and social eating more difficult that it needs to be.  If we can have Community Gardens, why can’t we have Community Kitchen?

I agree with Nora, on both points.

Communal kitchens? Great idea. Promoting community involvement, building social capital, and making great food together, I couldn’t be more excited about this. 

But more so the point that she made about people getting paid to predict trends. If it’s your JOB to predict trends, the lease you could do is a little background research and make sure your not printing yesterday’s 2-year old news.

Also, “new Nordic naturalism,” seriously?