Not Just Werebeer

I was using my magic crystal ball just now to spy on Those Who've Seen This Blog. It's very useful. I noticed that last month someone was referred to the site via Portsmouth Brewery's blog, which is a coincidence – about that time ago I went out there to snag some Kate the Great. Some real Grail Quest action. Portsmouth is great, check them out.

"mmm, i'm delicious!"
I know I have a few posts about Werebeer already, but it's not the only beer I've made. In fact, it was the second; first I had to learn how to make it, from a friend of mine. Logically, that one was called Friend Brew:

snapshot from a now-who-knows-where restaurant placemat

second draft: it's good with just a touch of color, right?

I'm dying to make more labels. First I need to make more beer, I guess – order in all things.

...and then I found $20.

Banana-Brahma

[The following constitutes the entirety of an email I wrote to a friend to encourage him to bake banana bread]

Banana Bread doesn't have much to do with Brahma, but whatever.

INGREDIENTS
[and process]

1 1/3 cups flour (wheat, but whatever)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

[mix this in a bowl and set aside]

2/3 cups sugar (brown & white, but whatever)
1 tablespoon lemon juice (i use 2, from a plastic lemon)
1/2 stick butter (aka. 1/4 cup; salted or unsalted, whatever)

[mix this in the bowl where you mix everything – call it "Awesome Bowl"]
(NB. the lemon juice is for acid, and for dissolving the other stuff; you can substitute other stuff that does that, like vinegar, or a Coke, right)

2 eggs (Awesome Bowl)

[mixy mixy]

3 bananas (Awesome Bowl; they're great when they're ripe and spotty)

[mix mix mix]

now add the flour stuff you mixed at the beginning to Awesome Bowl, along with whatever else you want to add
(eg. 1/2 cup wheat germ; makes it dense and dark
or - 1 cup instant oats; makes it bready and light, with a crust
or - whatever, do whatever; i'm going to try 1/2 cup peanuts next time)

(it's also awesome to put stuff on top of your bread once it's in the pan – oats, salt, whatever – makes it look real pro-pro. also, i use a hand-blender, but if you're the boss you rock a Cuisinart)

oh right –

preheat the oven to 350° (which i never remember), bake the bread for an hour
when you take it out make sure to take it out of the pan, otherwise it gets mushy

recipe says to use a 5 x 9 x 3 inch bread pan. mine is sort of that, whatever. you could probably pour it into a casserole dish and be fine (don't get on my case if it isn't, i haven't tried that). be sure to butter it.

Kyaraben

So this happened back in December, but I found the pictures and I was like, "yeahhhh!" There was a book signing at Giant Robot and you got a cookie† if you brought a bento box, so I made one. Except I don't have a bento box, or tupperware, or anything like that really, so I made a sea-diorama in a jar. There's an inside-jar with lunch, and an outside-jar with desert. See –

octo-sausages, sandy-rice, sea star-carrots, a pickle-sea cucumber

carrot crabs! it's hard to see the dill-seaweed

then the jell-o cooled around the inside jar, with big apricot-tunas attacking Swedish fish; next time i'll subtly sweeten a clear gelatin, cause it was like, three servings of absurdly saccharin, almost opaque gloop.

Giant Robot has a slideshow with pictures of the whole event.

___________________
†cookie = book, in this case

Hummus Gandia

I figure there's a tag here for "things eaten," so what's the harm in sharing something with you I actually ate (and made, rest assured).

See, my mom makes hummus in a very particular way. It's the only recipe I know for making hummus, and I do a pretty good job of ignoring what I'm supposed to do and throwing a bunch of things under the whirring blade to make my own (of course delicious) version. Now you can, too, and you won't get any sassy remarks from me in the supermarket for buying something that is miles easy to make– and master!

Hummus Gandia

chickpeas
Big old can (30 oz.) of Goya Chick Peas– wham. I drain the liquid.

onion
1/3-1/2. I have to give it bit of a chop first, cause I use a hand-blender.

garlic
2-3 cloves. I dice these, too, so they permeate.

oil
Judge it as you blend, but don't be shy. If you didn't drain the liquid like I did, you won't have to use as much oil.

lemon
1/2 a lemon. You can use fake juice from one of those plastic lemons, just don't tell anyone.

salt & pepper
Obviously. Now – there's a lot of other stuff you can put in hummus, but it's pretty much done and ready to eat now (once you blend it, of course). Here are options that aren't paprika:

cilantro
mustard powder
cumin
jalapeño
vinegar
Sriracha
Worcestershire sauce

I've tried all these and they always give it a little something. I wouldn't do them all at once, and I wouldn't do too much, either; but yeah, exercise your fun brain. No need to make the same thing over and over.



Once you have this stuff it lasts a while, so if you want to go nuts with it you can:
- fry up some onions (the other 1/2 you didn't put in the hummus, say), and just put them on top
- fry it up with an egg breakfast; that is to say, make eggs, then heat some hummus up
- mix it with tomato sauce! (love that one – my other favorite thing to make is tomato sauce)
- put it on a sandwich; this didn't occur to me for a long time, but it's great