The Daring Cooks Make Vegan Dosas

For the Daring Cooks September challenge, we made vegan dosas adapted from the reFresh cookbook by Ruth Tal. Fresh is a popular chain of vegetarian/vegan restaurants in Toronto, Canada with three published cookbooks teaching how to cook Fresh food at home. Our host Debyi of Healthy Vegan Kitchen chose this fun challenge for us, and I for one am grateful because this is the first time I’ve ever made Indian food and witnessed our two older boys actually eat it. Builder Guy (6) has recently developed a taste for spicy foods—good thing because we like our spices—and Top Gun (5) is finally coming around and trying new things. Monkey Boy is still a picky three-year-old, but he did eat one of the plain dosas. We thought the dosas were delicious and would eat that coconut curry sauce on just about anything. Read more

Roasted Garlic Hummus

This is our first year for growing garlic and now we are slapping ourselves for not trying it years ago because it was so easy. We planted the garlic cloves back in October and then just let them do their thing, no difficult maintenance required. They sprouted before winter set in, then the real growth came in spring when the temperatures warmed up.

We planted softneck silverskin garlic, the most common type of garlic you’ll find in markets or stores. It doesn’t have scapes like hardneck garlic, but it keeps longer after harvest than the hardneck type. Softneck garlic is good for braiding, something I really should practice but I’m all thumbs when it comes to fine motor skills.

As always, we learned a few things with our experiment. First, choose a type of garlic that will thrive in your area. In general, hardneck varieties do well in cold climates and softneck varieties do well in hot climates. Plant only the biggest cloves because they yield the biggest bulbs with the most cloves, and save the little cloves for the kitchen. Plant cloves in October to November in a sunny spot about two to three inches (five to eight centimeters) below the surface. Keep it watered in the spring and when the weather turns hot. Once the green tops start to brown and lay over, stop watering for at least one week before harvesting.

Harvesting is not difficult, just carefully dig around the bulb without touching it to loosen the roots then lift it out. Tap the garlic a little to get most of the dirt off, but don’t worry about removing all the dirt because you want to leave the papery skin on for storage. If you harvest on a dry day you’ll have an easier time tapping off the dirt.

You can use the newly harvested garlic right away, but for long-term storage it needs to cure (dry), so put it in a place out of direct sunlight (not the refrigerator) for about two weeks. We hung it from the rafters in our basement root cellar. After the garlic has cured, you can braid it. Softneck varieties will keep for up to eight months and hardneck varieties will keep for up to two months.

And of course, save some of the big cloves for planting again.

When ready to use, just cut away any dangling roots and use a clean dry toothbrush to gently rub away the outer skin and remaining dirt.

Roasted garlic is one of my favorite foods. It tastes delicious smeared on good artisan bread and adds another dimension of flavor to tomato sauce, mashed potatoes, caramelized onions, hummus, and many other dishes. Serve the hummus with raw vegetables, pita slices or pita chips, or baguette slices. It’s also delicious on bagel or pita sandwiches with avocado slices and alfalfa sprouts.

This is my contribution to Grow Your Own, a blogging event that celebrates the dishes we create from foods we’ve grown, raised, foraged, or hunted ourselves. Amy of Playing House is our host for this round, so be sure to visit her blog for more information about submitting your post. The deadline is July 30. If you are new to the event, you can read more about the rules for participating at the Grow Your Own page.

References

Leslie Land – How to Grow Garlic

ROASTED GARLIC HUMMUS

Makes about 2 cups.

Equipment

food processor

Ingredients

1 (15 ounce/425 g) can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed (or 1/2 cup dry beans, soaked overnight, then drained and rinsed)
3 tablespoons sesame tahini (I prefer Ziyad brand, but any will do.)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 whole bulb roasted garlic (or 2 if you really want some garlic flavor)
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
4 to 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Preparation

Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of the skin. In the bowl of the food processor, add the beans, tahini, lemon juice, sea salt, and garlic. Process for a few seconds to get the mixture started. While the processor runs, begin drizzling in the olive oil, starting with 2 tablespoons, adding more as necessary to create a smooth consistency.

Other Easy Appetizers

More Recipes With Roasted Garlic From Around the Blogs

Baking Bites – Roasted Garlic Grilled Flatbread

Wild Yeast – Roasted Garlic Bread

Kalyn’s Kitchen – Garlic-Roasted Green Beans with Shallots and Almonds

Ezra Pound Cake – Roasted Garlic, Poblano, and Red Pepper Guacamole

Cannellini Bean Salad with White Balsamic Vinaigrette

Bean salads are an essential part of any recipe file and are great for summer picnic salads since they are often dressed with dairy-free vinaigrettes. I like to mix up my own vinaigrettes, usually tasting and estimating until I get a flavor I like. In his new book, Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, Michael Ruhlman explains how to use ratios to create everyday dishes. The standard ratio for vinaigrettes is three parts oil to one part acid, though it can vary depending on whether you choose a citrus juice or vinegar. Citrus juices tend to be very acidic and need some extra oil to balance the flavor, but generally vinegars work well with this three to one ratio. For this vinaigrette, I used one part white balsamic vinegar to three parts extra virgin olive oil.

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Spicy Black Beans and Ham

Ham bones are a traditional flavoring for beans, and I remember my mother making pinto or navy beans cooked with ham and onions and served with cornbread. It was simple, homey food that warmed the belly and was easy on the budget. We use ham bones in soups and beans, and save the large ham bones when we cook ham for Sunday dinner, I just store them in the freezer.

I like black beans with ham and spice them up with Mexican flavors. We enjoy these beans as a main dish with jalapeno cheddar cornbread or rice or as a side dish for Mexican foods.

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Slow Cooker Squash Stew with Garbanzo Beans and Red Lentils

Our kitchen counter is covered with five different types of squash, a few steps up from our normal routine of acorn and butternut squash. On my last squash run, I came home with sweet dumpling, delicata, buttercup, acorn, and butternut and plans for all of them, mostly revolving around roasting and soups. And of course I wanted some photos of the squash pile.

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Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup with Five Peppers and Ham

It’s May and I want to dream about picnics and cooking outdoors. We thought summer was well on it’s way when temperatures climbed into the 80s a couple weeks ago, then we were startled with the cold front that came through yesterday bringing lots of rain and dropping temperatures back into the 40s. Everything is damp and the chill in the air makes for perfect soup weather, especially if it’s a little spicy like this one I warmed up for lunch. It tastes great with a slice of cornbread on the side or crumbled in the bowl, and makes me feel all warm inside. I needed that pick-me-up as I watched a river run through our backyard, cutting a swath in the garden. At least it wasn’t in the house! Maybe the mud pit will dry out enough that we can finish planting this weekend.

I like to make this soup in the slow cooker because it is so easy for a busy day, or even for overnight. The ham bone goes in for lots of flavor, but if you want a vegan option then skip the bone and use a rich homemade vegetable stock instead of water. Also, if you add the salt late rather than the beginning of the cooking process, the beans will be more tender, so hold that salt!

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