Rosemary's Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

Many thanks to Rosemary for taking us along on her beautiful day of hummus.

How to Make Roasted Red Pepper Hummus, by Rosemary Gretton

First, make sure you have a red pepper. And garlic. And a can of chickpeas. And tahini. And fresh lemons. And olive oil.

Split the red pepper in two and remove seeds and white parts. Flatten and lightly coat the red pepper with olive oil.

Separate several cloves of garlic from the garlic head.

Quick and Easy Home Roasted Peppers

I used the tool at Calorie Count to set the nutrition facts for one pepper and a scant amount of oil as most will be removed with the skin.

Deliciousness!

Quick and Easy Home Roasted Peppers

Ingredients:

As many peppers as you would like to roast

Olive oil

Preheat oven to 450

quartered and oiled

Directions:

Rinse and quarter the peppers. Slice the top, remove the core, de-seed, and remove the ribs.

Either brush with olive oil or put oil in a bowl and dip the pepper quarters to coat.

roasted!

Roast in a pan with a side (to catch some of the spitting oil) for about 15-20 minutes or until the skins blacken and blister.

Remove the peppers from the oven. Use tongs and place the peppers in a brown paper bag, roll to seal the steamy goodness within, and allow the peppers to cool for 10 minutes.

resting in a bag

Now that they are cool enough to handle and the sealed container has assisted in a final steam making the peppers easy to peel - peel off the skins and excess black bits with your fingers!

Slice them now and use in your favorite recipe or place in a clean preserve jar packed well with oil and store in the fridge where they will keep for about two weeks.

Marg Makes Canning Easy

This is the technique Marg uses when she makes her fantastical Summer Tomato Sauce. Enjoy and read the directions through to the end before you even think about starting. Do take great care as boiling water plays a dominant role. Keep all the young ones safely occupied elsewhere.

You’ll need:

pint or quart mason jars with lids (rings and seals—you can reuse the rings from year to year, but never reuse the seals, buy new ones)

water bath canner

jar lifter, canning funnel, ladle, tongs

a saucepan

old towels

What to do:

Fill the waterbath canner with water and start heating it on the stovetop as you’re nearing the end of the cooking of your sauce. You will need the water boiling when you start processing, and it takes a while for all that water to reach boiling point, so start this early!

You will need to sterilize jars and lid seals to prevent spoilage. Put the seals in some water in the saucepan and bring the water to a boil; keep water simmering throughout. Also rest funnel and tongs in the boiling water to sterilize them until you’re ready to use them.

You can sterilize the jars 2 different ways. You can run them through the dishwasher just before you’re going to fill them (keep the door shut when you’re not removing jars), or you can put them in the boiling water in the waterbath canner and leave them a few minutes. In both cases remove a jar just before you’re going to fill it.

Place the canning funnel in the sterile jar and ladle in sauce, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace at the top of the jar. This is important. Remove funnel, carefully wipe any drips off the rim of the jar with a clean cloth or paper towel, lift a seal from the saucepan of simmering water with the tongs, and align this, rubberized ring side down, on top of the jar. Screw a ring lid over this finger tight only—you don’t need to really tighten the ring. The screw lid is meant to hold the seal lid in place, nothing more. It’s the flat seal lid that will be forming the seal.

Place the filled jars in the wire tray that comes with the waterbath canner (most canners hold 6-7 jars in their wire trays). DO NOT put the jars in the tray elsewhere and carry it to the canner; rest the tray inside the canner, keeping it above the water using the handles that are designed to hook on the edges of the canner. Once it’s filled, carefully lower the tray full of jars into the boiling water. Be careful of your fingers, this is boiling water! The tops of the jars should be covered by 1 inch of water. If they’re not covered by enough water, add more hot water. Also be careful that there isn’t too much water—keep an eye on the water level in the canner as you lower in the full tray, and if necessary scoop out some of the water so it doesn’t overflow. Fold the wire tray handles in just a bit so that the lid will fit on the canner.

Bring the water back to a boil and, once it’s boiling again, set your timer. Process pint jars in the boiling water for 35 minutes. Process quart jars for 45 minutes. Don’t overprocess or you could overcook the contents; don’t underprocess or you’ll risk unsealed jars and contamination.

Lay an old towel on a nearby counter. This is where you will be setting the hot jars for cooling after they’ve been processed.

When the jars are done processing, remove the canner lid and carefully nudge the handles on the wire tray back upright (use a fork or tongs if they’ve dropped into the water), then lift the tray and hook the handles on the edges of the canner. Using your jar lifter, grip a jar around its shoulders just below the lid and lift it out of the canner. Support the bottom with your other hand (covered by a towel or an oven mitt; towels are better because things are going to get wet!) while you move the jar to the towel you’ve spread on the counter. Leave 1-2 inches of space around each upright jar, for air flow and cooling.

When a jar seals, you will hear a pop. When it is sealed, the lid will be slightly concave and when you touch it with your fingers, there will be no give. If a jar is not sealed, the lid will be convex (very slightly raised) and when you press with your fingers, you will feel some movement. If a jar doesn’t seal, put it in the fridge when it’s cool and eat it within a week or so.

Once the jars have sealed and are cool, store them in a cool place. Canned sauce will keep a year. DO NOT eat contents that smell when you open the jar, if there is mold, or if there is any suspicion that they may have spoiled. Throw away spoiled contents. Often, you will have to pry the seal lid off a sealed jar of sauce with the edge of a spoon. You’ll likely hear another pop when it comes loose. This means there was a good seal.

You can reuse the jars and ring lids year after year as long as they’re still in good condition. Always get new lid seals. 

This process is much the same for many different types of fruits and vegetables; only the processing times will differ. Find the proper processing times and any requirements for different fruits or veggies (e.g., hot pack or cold pack, altitude) on the Internet.

For safe canning to prevent botulism, low acid foods need to be processed in a pressure cooker instead of the water bath canner.

Sheila's How To for Freezing Whole Corn on the Cob

Corn has a ridiculously short season. Tempting though it may be to purchase a whole basket full of sweet corn from the farmer's stand, you know you won't eat it all before the sweet begins to fade. It is quite a fun production to remove the kernels and freeze them (though they do fit into your freezer better that way) and you may not have time to do that. So, just freeze a few whole ears for a time when you only dream of summer. The nutrition facts for one ear of unbuttered corn were designed at Calorie Count.

Sheila's Method for Freezing Whole Corn on the Cob

Ingredients:

as many ears of corn as you have room for in your freezer

Directions:

Rinse the ears. Pull back the husks but do not remove. Pull off all the silks as best you can. Recover the cob with the husks, give a twist at the top to seal.

Pop into a freezer bag, remove as much air as you can, and place in the freezer.

Boil, grill, or microwave frozen or thawed ears. If frozen allow more time.

Brandy on How to Freeze Fresh Sweet Corn

Brandy is a cousin of mine and fortunate enough to live smack dab in the middle of the best corn growing land there is. The family farms, which means that when it's corn season, there is a LOT of corn! You can't eat it all... though you might try. So, what Brandy and all my other cousins do is freeze it. Here's how.

Freezing Fresh Sweet Corn

First make yourself one of these:

It's a Redneck Concoction for standing corn on end.

You'll need a 2x4 long enough to sit atop a big pan, and a nice long nail.

Sterilize the nail in boiling water. Then whack it with a hammer until it goes all the way through the 2x4 in the middle on the flat side. That's it.

Next you need to do this:

Head on out to the farm and pick as much corn as you can. Get the whole family involved, three generations of Leggetts will do. Take it home and shuck and shuck and shuck. Put the corn in a bucket.

Have your brother, C.O., get the big kettle going. Yet another sister is necessary for handing off the corn for blanching in the hot water (about two minutes in the water is all it needs).

Your brother, and sister Sherry, will plunge the hot blanched cobs into another container filled with icy water. This stops the cookery.

When the corn has cooled, tote the buckets back to the house where Brandy and her Mom Bev await. The toting is best done by the younger members of the family, Abby and Zoie, who must have their hands clean by now from all that shucking.

Brandy and Bev will take the corn and pin it to the nail on the board and centered over a tray big enough to catch all the kernels.

Then comes the fun part. You can use a sharp knife or use the fantastic corn scraper from Pampered Chef. Brandy says it makes short work of the corn.

Here's Bev showing the proper technique for scraping the corn. Her hands are a blur!

Scrape off the kernels right into the pan. Repeat until you have the container filled or run out of corn. Put the corn in small containers or zip lock bags, seal well and place in the freezer. If you use bags, squish out as much air as you can before popping into the freezer.

Enjoy your corn! Man, I wish I didn't live so far away, the corn in Houston is ok, but not as sweet and good as what we grow on the farm in Illinois.

Ninav on How to Turn Zucchini into Pasta!

Instead of pasta, my friend Ninav from Calorie Count loves to substitute zucchini! Her method is so simple and accessible that it is a fantastic way to make a lovely work night meal. Zucchini has only 20 calories per cup, a lot fewer calories than pasta -so enjoy this as often as you like!

How to Turn Zucchini into Pasta

Use either a julienne peeler or a vegetable peeler and make wide strips of "noodles".

Lightly sprinkle with salt and let it sit for 10 min.

Then rinse, squeeze off the excess water.

Eat it raw, microwave, or sauté it for a few minutes to heat it up.

Try it! You'll be surprised!

Using the New Print Button!

Have you noticed the new print button at the bottom of each post? I love it!

There is a trick to using it though -

You need to click on the title of the recipe you want so that it opens in its own page. Then click the print button. I chose this button because you can decide exactly what to do with the page - print as is, eliminate the picture, only print the ingredients or whatever part you want, enlarge or shrink the font, and you can even save it as a pdf!

Enjoy!

How to Cook Beans

If you have the time, inexpensive dried beans are the best, as some nutrition is lost in the canning process.

Canned beans are still very good for you though, so don't feel badly about using them. I frequently use canned beans, rinsing them to remove the salt and anything else that was added during processing. Just place them in a colander and run cool water over them until the water running out is clear. If you can, get organic canned beans to reduce the stuff you have to wash off.

The current concern about canned beans is that the linings used in the cans contain BPA (just like the plastic water bottles) and that the amount is particularly high in canned beans (it's also in canned tomatoes and other things as well). Everything I have read so far indicates that you can remove or reduce this through thorough rinsing.

BPA free Cans:

Eden Foods are the only canned beans that I know is BPA free.

Soon to be BPA free:

Muir Glenn and Amy's are making changes to remove BPA per several web sites, but are not yet BPA free.

Not BPA free:

all others

I'll edit this list when I learn of brands that no longer use BPA in the lining of cans.

Dried Beans

One of the best things I ever found out about beans is that you can cook them using any method you prefer, drain them, and freeze them! The first time I did this I also discovered that you don't want to over cook them as they will get a little mushy on the re-cook. So cook them to about 80% or so done, just close enough that a 1/2 hour or so in a pot will finish them.

Clean your beans!

Beans are harvested and processed by machine and are prone to containing small stones, so protect your teeth by sorting them thoroughly before rinsing. After the initial sort and rinse, I like to put them in a pot with water and remove those bits that float.  There are several ways to prepare the rinsed dried beans.

Traditional Long Soak

For the traditional long soak method, cover beans with 2” of water, cover with a lid, and let the beans soak for 6-8 hours. Drain, rinse, and put the beans back in the pot with fresh water to simmer until they are done - about an hour or so, just check then and see if they are as done as you want them to be. Beans break and split if they are simmered too hard so keep the heat low. Try making the beans to this point ahead of time on any day when you have time, cool in a colander, and freeze in containers or freezer zip-lock bags for quick weekday use.

Quick Soak

I never remember to get the beans out to soak the day before so I rarely use the traditional method, and instead use the quick soak method – cover the beans with 2” of water, bring to boil for two minutes, remove from heat, cover and let sit an hour or until you remember that they were still sitting on the stove. Then drain, rinse, and set to simmer as above. You can add fat or any seasoning, except salt, at the start of the simmer if you are heading right on in to cooking your soup or stew or whatever you are making.

Slow Cooker

Pre-soak beans using preferred method, then drain and rinse. Place a bag of beans with 8 cups of water in crock pot. Set heat on high and allow to simmer with the top tilted to vent. Simmer 8 hours, until beans are tender enough to mash. Stirring isn't necessary, but feel free if it makes you feel progressive. Drain and proceed as you wish.

Pressure Cook those Beans!

Decide how many beans you want to cook, sort, and rinse. Put the beans in the pressure cooker and cover with 2 to 3 inches of water. (Do NOT add salt at this point, as this will make the beans tough.) Put a loose fitting lid on the cooker, and bring the beans to a boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for 5 to 6 minutes. Turn off the heat and allow to stand for one hour. Check to make sure there is enough water to cover the beans before putting on the pressure cooker lid. Bring the pressure cooker to temperature, following directions from the manufacturer. Once pressure is reached, turn down the temperature and cook for 25 minutes. Remove from heat, and allow pressure to drop by itself. Remove the lid, and add a small amount of salt, if desired.

Bake the Beans

After the quick or regular soaking method, place the beans in a pot with an oven safe lid. Add enough water to just cover the beans. Put the lid on the pot and bake in a 350 F oven for about an hour and a half to two hours. Check every now and then to see if you need to add more water to keep moist but not overly wet. When the beans are cooked, you may cool and freeze them or continue and add whatever seasonings you prefer.

Use the Rice Cooker!

This fantastic suggestion comes from the comment section of this note!

Another method is to rinse the beans then put them in a rice cooker with a generous amount of cold water. They take a couple of hours if they are not presoaked. I like pinto beans. I add rice and seasonings (cumin, chili powder, a little salt) the last 20 minutes. You can also add chopped onions, carrots, garlic and so on. It's faster than a slow cooker, and they don't get mushy because when the water is absorbed, the cooker shuts itself off.

To Salt or Not to Salt

Culinary weapons are drawn and tempers flare over whether it is appropriate to add salt or even acidic ingredients like tomatoes before the beans are cooked. Many chefs firmly state that the beans will not become tender if you add these things at the beginning.  Impressed as I am by such confident and aggressive chefs - hey, they do wield rather sharp knives - I wait until the beans are cooked before adding salt or tomatoes - but you do what you prefer. I promise not to argue if you salt first.

Pass on the Gas

The baking soda in the water thing is a myth. Do not bother.

Cure #1 - Instead discard the soaking water rather than using to cook. Apparently because they are uncooked, they don't lose enough nutrition to make a difference. If an overnight soak still has you, uhm, gassy, then proceed to Cure #2.

Cure #2 - Most importantly: Instead of just soaking overnight, soak for 24 hours. Do not use the soak water and flatulence be gone!

For some great bean recipes - see the beans/legumes section to the right under Categories.

Enjoy your beans!