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Hummus recipe!

This is a recipe that comes courtesy of Steffani Cameron (@SnarkySteff on Twitter).

Hummus is one of those things that is wonderful to have on the table with almost anything to dip in it — pita, veggies, crackers, or whatever you like. Until Steff revealed this recipe, I had no clue it was so easy. I’d buy the stuff in weeks-old, preserved containers from the grocery store. Now I make it myself every time, and I’ll never go back.

Go ahead and try this one for a healthy alternative to store-bought dips. Take it to a party. Everyone will love it.

Ingredients

  • 2 cans (540 mL) chickpeas
  • 1/4 to 1/4 cups tahini
  • 2 or more cloves fresh, chopped garlic (I use more)
  • Juice of 2 lemons
  • 2 teaspoons cumin
  • 2 teaspoons coriander
  • Braising liquid from the canned chickpeas
  • Salt
  • Hot sauce
  • Olive oil (optional, as garnish)
  • 1 calamata olive (optional, as garnish)
  • Sumac (optional, as garnish)

Steps

  1. Open the chickpeas and drain the braising liquid they’re pack in into a cup or dish for later.
  2. In a mixing bowl, add the chickpeas, tahini, chopped garlic, lemon juice, cumin, coriander, and a liberal dash of hot sauce.
  3. With a hand blender or regular blender, purée the ingredients thoroughly, adding splashes of the braising liquid to reach the right consistency. Salt and add hot sauce to taste as you purée.
  4. Serve in a small bowl with the kalamata olive, a dash of sumac, and small drizzle of olive oil. I haven’t tried it with sumac, but Steff says it’s good.
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Steve’s Stout Chili

Makes exactly one crapton of delicious, spicy chili.

INGREDIENTS

  • 1kg lean ground beef
  • 1kg ground chorizo or spicy sausage meat
  • 2 large cans (2x ~500mL) kidney beans
  • 1 large can  (~500mL) black beans
  • 1 cup sweet corn niblets
  • 1 chopped large sweet onion
  • 2 chopped jalapeños
  • 2 large cans (2x 370mL) tomato paste
  • 1 large can tomato sauce (optional)
  • 3 chopped green/red/yellow bell peppers
  • 1/3 cup chili powder
  • 2 tablespoons cumin
  • 2 tablespoons coriander
  • 2 tablespoons oregano
  • 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
  • 6 chopped cloves of garlic (or equivalent paste)
  • 2 limes
  • 2 bottles (2x 355mL) stout or dark ale
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • Habanero pepper sauce, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper to taste

PREPARATION

  1. Slowly caramelize the onions and brown the garlic. When the onions are translucent, crank up the heat and fry the beef with the onions and garlic, adding Worcester, salt, and pepper to taste. Transfer the cooked meat to a big soup pot.
  2. Add to the meaty soup pot: the beans (rinsed), cumin, coriander, oregano, chili powder, and cilantro.
  3. Fry the sausage. No seasoning is necessary, because sausage is already seasoned. Drain the excess sausage fat and dump drained sausage into the big soup pot.
  4. Fry the peppers, corn, and jalapeños in a tablespoon of vegetable oil, salting lightly. The sausage is already quite salty, so avoid adding too much extra. When they’re browned and cooked through, add them to the soup pot.
  5. Now it’s time to season the chili to taste. Gradually mix in the stout, lime juice, and hot sauce until it tastes about right.
  6. Stew at low temperature for a couple of hours or more. If the chili is too thick, cut it with a can of tomato sauce and add a little more seasoning if necessary.
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Poutine-on-a-stick… with bacon!

As it’s Canada Day weekend, I thought it would be appropriate to prepare one of Canada’s favourite dishes. It’s the dish that originated in Quebec, is beloved by pub-goers all across Canada, and reviled by cardiologists everywhere. The dish is the magnificent poutine.

Poutine
Prelude to a heart attack.

Poutine is beautiful in its simplicity. Dump some crispy fries on a plate, top them with cheese curds, and pour gravy or other sauce over top. What it lacks in beauty, it makes up for in flavour. And grease. And salt. And arterial blockages.

Cheese curds from Quebec
These cheese curds are from Quebec, apparently.

To construct this cheesy concoction, I enlisted one of Canada’s leading experts on poutine, Chef Stacie Bee. I checked her credentials, and she has, in fact, not only been to Montréal, but has also actually eaten poutine. Furthermore, Stacie is an expert not only in poutine, but also in bacon, which became a small but vital component in our construction.

Stacie chops bacon into bits
Chef Stacie transforms bacon into bacon bits. Note the bacon wristwatch, which can only be worn by a truly accomplished culinary expert in bacon.

As culinary experts agree, any food is made better by putting it on a stick: pizza on a stick; fries and bacon on a stick; spaghetti and meatballs on a stick; scorpion, seahorse, and silkworm larvae on sticks; and more! As chef and author, Anthony Bourdain, is fond of saying, everything tastes better on a stick.

And this is how Chef Stacie and I decided to prepare… poutine-on-a-stick.

Ingredients:

  • Crispy french fries
  • Cheese curds
  • Gravy or poutine sauce (fresh is best, but we used powder)
  • Delicious, crispy bacon
Poutine-on-a-stick under construction
Poutine-on-a-stick under construction

Preparation:

  1. Put fries and curds on the stick.
  2. Put sauce on the stick.
  3. Sprinkle bacon bits on the stick.

The finished product:

Behold the majesty that is POUTINE-ON-A-STICK!
Behold the majesty that is POUTINE-ON-A-STICK!
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Chocolate-covered bacon… on a stick

Truly, there is no meat more delicious than thick-cut bacon, and no sweet no richer than pure, dark chocolate. What meat-and-sweet pairing could be more natural than to combine the two?

Today, I did it. I brought pig and chocolate together in a sweet and salty chocomeatgasm. On a stick.

Ingredients:

Ingredients for chocolate-covered bacon
Only 3 ingredients for the greatest food on earth
  • 15 oz semi-sweet dark chocolate
  • 4 oz white chocolate
  • 15 strips of thick-cut bacon
  • bamboo skewers

Preparation:

Uncooked bacon on skewers
OK, admittedly at this stage it looks a little gross
  1. Soak the bamboo skewers for a while, then skewer the bacon.
  2. Put them on a rack in a roasting pan for 30 minutes at 350F until crispy.
  3. Remove from oven and let them cool.
  4. Melt the dark chocolate and smear it liberally on the bacon until no meat is showing through.
  5. Put the skewers in the fridge until the chocolate sets.
  6. Melt the white chocolate and drizzle lightly over the dark chocolate.
  7. Put the skewers back in the fridge until it sets.

The result:

Cubey's chocolate-covered bacon
Mmm. Chocobacon.
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Bacon chocolate chip bacon cookies with bacon

This recipe is actually almost identical to my regular chocolate cookie recipe, but substituting bacon for the eel meat.

The Ingredients

  • 1 cup butter
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 crapload chocolate chips
  • 1 crapload chopped crispy delicious bacon
  • 2 cups flour

Assembly

  1. Combine softened butter with the white and brown sugar. Mash ’em together until it’s an even consistency.
  2. Add the eggs and vanilla and bash them around until you have a nice brownish mush.
  3. Dissolve a half teaspoon of baking soda in a teaspoon of hot water (fizzzz!) and add it to the brownish mush with the salt.
  4. Add the chocolate chips and bacon bits.
  5. Add the flour a half cup at a time and really bash it around. Get in there with your fists if you have to, until that cookie dough is battered into submission.
  6. Put on a non-stick cookie sheet in small balls, spaced well apart. Stick a chunk of crispy bacon on top of each ball for appearances. Bake for about 10 to 12 minutes. Not too long or they get dry and tasteless.
  7. Let them cool, then melt the chocolate in a double-boiler or the microwave. Drizzle the melted chocolate over the cookies and let them set in the fridge.
  8. Eat.


The Finished Product