Spicy Slow-Roasted Tomato Hummus & Pita Chips

It's been a while since I posted an actual recipe, so here goes:
Sometime in 2010, I made an incredibly delicious spicy tomato hummus that looked like vomit but tasted like heaven (coining the term heavom).  Since then, I've been on a quest to recreate the recipe since I didn't write the original down.  Finally, two years later, I think I've approximated it (more or less).  I give you: Spicy Slow-Roasted Tomato Hummus with Homemade Pita Chips!

STEP 1: SLOW-ROASTED TOMATOES

Slow-roasted tomatoes are really very easy - it's kind of the same process as making raisins out of grapes - you're just slowly drying the tomatoes out.  They range from hot and flavorful to sun-dried, depending on how long you leave them in the oven for.  Basically, you just put those suckers on a baking pan, coat them in olive oil, salt, and pepper (you can add other spices or garlic if you want to get fancy).  Then, you leave the tomatoes in the oven for a very long time (2-3 hours) at a very low temperature (around 200-250 degrees Fahrenheit).  Just check on them after the two hour mark and take them out when they're at the desired chewiness.  I'll usually use 1 package of dumpstered cherry tomatoes for this, but any type will suffice.  You can also use slow-roasted tomatoes in breakfast dishes (divine with a poached egg), bruscettas, tomato sauce, etc.  Add some garlic in the pan to roast for fun. 

STEP 2: SLOW-ROASTED TOMATO HUMMUS

 Using the slow-roasted tomatoes, the next step can either be very hard or very easy, depending on whether or not you have a food processor.  If you do, you're in luck - you get the easy road.  Otherwise, get ready - you're in for a lot of cutting, mashing, and pain.

Ingredients:
- 1 can chickpeas
- Your slow-roasted tomatoes
- Juice from 1/2 an orange (or OJ from the carton in a pinch) - this is crucial as it brightens the flavor of the hummus considerably
- Juice from 1/2 a lemon or lime
- 2 tbsp tahini (the first time I did this, I made my own tahini, which involves roasting sesame seeds and painstakingly hand-crushing them while adding olive oil.  I don't recommend making your own tahini unless you're a sadist)
- 2-5 tbsp olive oil
-1-2 cloves roasted garlic (optional)
- 1-3 cloves fresh, peeled garlic
- 1-3 tsp cayenne pepper (to taste)
- 1 tsp cumin (to taste)
- salt & pepper to taste
- If you're not using tomatoes, sometimes a tsp or two of water will be needed.

Throw it all in the food processor.  Otherwise, have fun mashing and mixing the ingredients.  If you choose this route, there's a high likelihood that you will be crying by the end of the process.

Makes roughly 6-8oz. 

STEP 3: HOMEMADE PITA CHIPS

Homemade pita chips are perfect for when your pita bread is starting to go slightly stale, or if you got way too much from the dumpster.  You can use pita chips like any regular salty snack by themselves, or you can use them for dipping in hummus, salsa, or cream cheese based dips.  It's really simple (I wonder why people buy pita chips at all): cut your pita into 8ths, then use a brush to brush olive oil on each side of each chip, laying your chips on a tin foil-covered baking sheet when you're finished.  Add salt, pepper, and whatever else (garlic powder, basil, oregano) to taste.  Next, put your pita wedges in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 10-20 minutes, depending on your oven.  Check on them every so often to make sure they aren't burning, and flip them about half way through.

Items not dumpstered or donated: Olive oil, spices, tahini

Cucumber Watermelon Salad and Coolers

WATERMELON AND CUCUMBER SALAD

"Cornbread is sweet,
pork chops are good,
blackeyed peas are mighty, mighty fine
but give me, oh give me
I really wish you would
that watermelon hangin' on the vine..."

-- Tennessee Ernie Ford, "The Watermelon Song"



Ingredients:


- 3 cups peeled and cubed cucumber

- 3 cups cubed seedless watermelon

- 3 tbsp fresh lime juice

- Salt & pepper to taste

- Cayenne pepper to taste (optional)

- Lime zest


1. In a large bowl, toss cucumber and watermelon with lime juice, salt, pepper, and cayenne (if using.) Top with grated lime zest and serve immediately.

2. There is no step two.

If not serving immediately, leave out the salt. Refrigerate salad, covered, up to four hours; just before serving, toss with salt.

If you're feeling boozy, omit the salt and pepper and dump the salad into a food processor or blender. Puree and strain the liquid into an ice-filled glass and top up with vodka, a squeeze of lime, and a drizzle of honey. Boom! WATERMELON-CUCUMBER COOLERS (save the pulp to eat later).

Sweet Potato Fries with Spicy Garlic Aoli

I made this recipe to bring to Thanksgiving at my Dad's last year. My nieces and nephews (all under the age of 12 and averse to veggies) loved these, and the aoli elevated the dish so that all the adults were impressed with my "culinary expertise." My family asked me to make these again this year, so I figured I'd share the recipe. At home, I'll usually pair these with a black bean burger or my quinoa burgers (and put the aoli on top of the burgers too)!

SWEET POTATO FRIES WITH SPICY GARLIC AOLI

Ingredients:

Fries:
- 1 large sweet potato, peeled (don't have to peel them, but it makes them more crispy if you do. Also, a good rule of thumb is to ration about 1 sweet potato per person if you're cooking for more than just yourself or a friend).
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- Salt, pepper, paprika, and cinnamon to taste

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
While you wait for it to heat up, peel and cut your sweet potato into 1/2" thick sticks. Try to keep really pointy ends from being there, as they burn easily.
In a ziploc bag, put in your olive oil and spices.
Throw your sweet potatoes in and give the bag a good shake so that everything covers the sweet potato (this step is especially fun if you're making this with a kid as your helper. Put on some music and shake around!).
Put your potatoes spread evenly on a baking sheet with tin foil over it.
Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes, turning your fries over in the middle (at 10 or 15 minute mark - different ovens will take different times to make the fries crispy). When your fries begin to brown, it's time to take them out.
Dry your fries on a paper towel, add some extra salt and pepper, and serve!

You can make oven fries with regular potatoes too. Just bring down the cooking time to like 10-20 minutes because regular potatoes will burn more easily.

Aoli (don't use this if you're vegan unless you have vegan mayonnaise):
- 1/3 cup Mayonnaise (bonus points if it's homemade)
- 1-2 tbsp sriracha sauce
- 2-3 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp Lemon or lime juice (I used lemon)
- pepper & salt to taste (I used about 1 tsp pepper and 1-2 tsp salt)
- 1-3 tbsp cayenne pepper (depending on how spicy you like it)
- 1/2 tsp cumin

So, the funny thing about aoli is: it's just a fancy word for mayonnaise. You put stuff in it to make it taste better, but it's usually just mayonnaise (yeah - all those fancy restaurants that have "aoli" somewhere on the menu? It's because they're too chicken to just call it what it is so you're actually willing to pay more money and think it's healthy or high-class or something).

To make it, you just mix all the ingredients together until it tastes good. Up the quantities of everything if you want more aoli to dip into or if you're putting it on top of a burger.

Items not donated or dumpstered: olive oil, garlic, spices, sriracha sauce

Peach-Mango Salsa & Ginger Mojitos

Recently I had the pleasure to go through Hurricane Irene. It didn't hit us very hard in Maryland, but everyone was told not to go out of the house. So, while I waited for the power to go out with a friend (it never did), we made some peach-mango salsa, guacamole, and ginger mojitos, then sat down and watched Royal Tenenbaums as the wind and rain raged outside.

PEACH-MANGO SALSA


Ingredients:

- 3 small peaches, diced (from a large bushel given to us at work by a customer bought from a local farmer's market)
- 1 mango, diced
- 3-5 cups diced (fresh) tomatoes
- 2 cups diced white onion
- 1 clove garlic
- 1/2 - 1 jalapeno pepper - with seeds (depending on desired spiciness)
- 1/2 yellow bell pepper, diced
- Juice from 2 limes
- 1 bundle of fresh cilantro, chopped
- Salt (we needed quite a bit), black pepper, & cayenne to taste

Place tomatoes, onions, jalapeno, and bell peppers in a large pot over medium heat for 10 minutes, allowing the tomatoes to release their juices.
Add peaches & mango, then cook for an additional 5 minutes.
By this time, there should be a LOT of liquid accruing in your pot. Depending on how watery you like your salsa to be, drain as much off as you'd like. I ended up draining off about half the liquid (but kept enough to use as canning fluid for a few jars).
Add lime juice, cilantro, and extra spices.
Cool down the salsa before serving.
Can it if you'd like so you can bring it to a BBQ or pot-luck or give it as a gift to a friend. Plus, if you can it, you can enjoy the salsa in the winter when none of the ingredients are in season anymore! But BEWARE: There's not a whole bunch of acid in this recipe, so I wouldn't use the salsa after a few months - 6 at most (even if it's been properly sealed the whole time). If you want to keep the salsa longer, just add some apple cider vinegar to your mixture and it should make it last a little longer.

Items not dumpstered or donated: Garlic, cilantro (from garden), salt, black pepper, & cayenne

GINGER MOJITOS

This is my favorite drink in the world. I first encountered a ginger mojito when I was living in Prague going to film school (which is funny, since the drink is Cuban in origin). Plain mojitos were all the rage in Prague when I lived there, and the ginger spin on the drink was on the menu at this really awesome lounge/club named Radost FX (Rihanna notably shot one of her music videos there). If you're ever in Prague, I'd highly recommend hitting it up.

They make a way better ginger mojito than I ever could, but this is my meager attempt at trying to recreate it. You can also do a virgin version (that actually tastes almost exactly the same as the alcoholic one and is delicious) by just omitting the rum.

I feel badly that this recipe uses a lot of ingredients not dumpstered, but when you have SO many limes and ginger (which we had), it's a good way to use them when you're tired of using them in other ways. Plus, when there's a natural disaster, everyone seems to want a drink...

Ingredients:

- 2 shots white rum (optional)
- 1 cup club soda (add slightly more club soda for the virgin version)
- 1+ tsps minced ginger (I put in way more since I love ginger - think like 4 tsps for that extra bite to contrast the sweetness)
- 10+ fresh mint leaves (Again, I like way more for freshness, but most other recipes call for 10-12 leaves)
- Juice from 1 lime
- Lime slice to garnish
- 2-4 tsps sugar or simple syrup if you're more patient/making a big batch
- A bunch of ice (crushed for more of a tropical feel)

Muddle (basically mash together) ginger, mint, and halved lime (with rind) with a mortar & pestle or a muddler (if you don't have either of these, just put the ingredients in a small bowl or cup and use a spoon or similarly blunt object like the top of your rum bottle to mash them up).
Add this mixture to your ice, rum, and club soda.
Add simple syrup (or sugar).
Mix and enjoy!

Items not dumpstered or donated: Mint (from garden), rum, club soda

August Bounty and Spicy Street Cantaloupe

The other night, my friend Steve texted asking if I wanted to dumpster. He's generally a n00b, but really wants to learn the tricks of the trade. He's gone out with me once before, so the more experience he can get, the better!

Steve, my friend Keith, and I ventured out later that week to make our dumpster rounds.

We started at the Trader Joe's I normally go to. The dumpster was OVERFLOWING (like, I haven't seen it that full since Thanksgiving). It was a goldmine! We started rifling through when, to our dismay, a lady I hadn't seen before came out. She looked weathered, the years of produce-wrangling finally taking their toll.

"You can't do that."
This was contrary to what every other Trader Joe's employee at this particular branch had told me. I informed her that others had told me it was alright before and that we would not leave any sort of mess.
"No, I don't want y'all in the dumpster."
We politely packed up the precious little we had and left the TONS of discarded food behind us. I made a mental note not to dumpster as early in the evening next time (we had gone around 10:30pm, which was earlier than I normally arrive to pillage). I really hope this isn't an evening that causes them to start locking their dumpsters.

The hearts in the car were heavy as we proceeded to the next, less-bountiful Food Lion dumpster The store technically wasn't even closed yet (which some might deem reckless), but their dumpster is far enough back in the parking lot that no one notices you. The only downside of going before closing is that there isn't the usual haul of trash. The dumpster still came up with bread (an item we hadn't gotten to at Trader Joe's) and various other produce.

Hungry for more bread, we ran over to Panera, but their dumpster sadly mixed loaves in the same bag as leftover coffee, making all the good stuff spongy and gross. This isn't always the case at this dumpster, so I guess it's really a crapshoot.

Anyway, we all returned home and divided the till. In victory, we butchered the one cantaloupe we found and Keith introduced us to a recipe he'd often get from street vendors when he lived in San Fransisco:

SPICY STREET CANTALOUPE


Ingredients:
- 1 cantaloupe, cut up (small)
- Juice from 2 limes
- A blanket of cayenne pepper & salt

Mix them up. Serve. This recipe can also be used with mangoes or similarly sweet tropical fruits. Apparently, in San Fransisco, the Hispanic vendors would ask "con limon y con pimente y con sal?" Then add all the ingredients in a ziploc bag, shake up the contents, and sell it in the very bag it was prepared in. Pretty cool, huh? We enjoyed the cantaloupe on my porch, and I saved a bit for work the next day!

Items not dumpstered or donated: Cayenne pepper, salt

Also, my share of the dumpster bounty:

- 1 cantaloupe (duh)
- 1 small bag of assorted potatoes
- 3 beets
- 3 sweet potatoes
- 2 papayas
- 2 mangoes
- 1 bag baby arugula blend
- 1 bag celery
- 2 pkgs cherry heirloom tomatoes
- 9 roma tomatoes (tomatoes dived for a special project!)
- 1 pkg mushrooms
- 1 pkg strawberries
- 1 lemon
- 1 kiwi
- 4 limes
- 1 squash
- 3 zucchini
- 1 eggplant
- 1 yellow bell pepper
- 4 bananas (frozen immediately)
- 1 loaf honey wheat bread (frozen immediately)
- 1 pkg roasted and cut turkey breast (frozen)
- 6 pkgs cherries (one given away to my Stepmom)

Summer Salads - Sesame Tomato and Citrus Carrot

Now that it's summer, expect more produce in the dumpster (yay)! Also, expect more recipes using that produce (yay)!


SESAME TOMATO SALAD

So, the first time I made this, I made it as a tomato and cucumber salad paired with some similarly marinated tuna steaks, but then I ran out of cucumber and just used tomatoes for a quick snack before work. It still tasted awesome; it was crisp and cool in this suffocating summer heat. Honestly, this recipe is all about the dressing. It doesn't really matter what you put the dressing on, because it will automatically taste delicious. I just have 8 million cherry tomatoes to use right now before they go bad, and this makes me eat them faster than Justin Bieber can run away from a flashmob of tweens.

Ingredients:

These amounts are good for about 1-2 small side servings.

- Cherry tomatoes, halved (add heirlooms if you have them for color and extra flavor like I did) (you can also use regular sized tomatoes if you want)
- Cucumber/whatever (optional) - if you skin the cucumber, you can get fancy and use the shredded bits to garnish the top or do one sliver to make a bowl corral thing for your salad...
- Ginger (about the size of a garlic clove)
- Garlic (0.5-1 clove per serving of tomatoes)
- 1.5 tsp sesame oil
- 1 tbsp white vinegar or rice vinegar
- Toasted sesame seeds
- 2 tsp soy sauce

Shred your ginger onto the tomatoes.
Mince garlic, toss that in.
Pour all the other stuff on top (tweak the ratios if you want more bite).
Serve it.

BOOM. Easy.

This is very similar to the sauce I used with my Bok Choy & Green Beans - the salad dressing is a lighter, more refreshing version (due to the vinegar). However, you could totally substitute raw green beans as your salad material and go to town if you needed to use them up. If I were to use green beans, I'd probably julienne them first so they would absorb more of the juicy stuff. I made this dressing to put on a mostly dumpstered salad at my friends' house and they LOVED it, so I'm pretty sure I'm not insane that this stuff is the nomz.




CITRUS CARROT SALAD

Ingredients:
- Carrots
- Lime juice (lemon can be substituted, but it doesn't taste as good)
- Salt & Pepper to taste. Use fresh cilantro if you're feeling sassy.

Shred or julienne carrots (the thinner the better).
Thoroughly cover in lime juice.
Add salt/pepper/cilantro/whatever to taste (optional - I usually won't add anything).

DONE.

Super easy and refreshing. Plus, you needed ZERO other materials besides those you dumpstered! Amazing!

Items not dumpstered or donated: garlic, ginger, sesame oil, soy sauce, sesame seeds, white vinegar, salt & pepper