Easy Chick-peasey Hummus

Hummus! Ever since my mom mentioned it to me, I've been a-craving it, so I went ahead and made some for dinner.

Hummus
serves 4

1 15oz can Garbanzo beans, drained with the liquid reserved
1 clove garlic mashed or just cut up really small
2 tsp cumin (seems like a lot, is actually perfect)
1 Tbs olive oil
lemon juice
(1/4 tsp salt- optional)

Put all ingredients in blender. Blend. Mix by hand if necessary. Add some of the reserved bean liquid. EAT! I had mine with carrots, celery, and naan. Oh baby.

I tried freezing the naan- and it worked! I put them in slightly-greased freezer bags, and froze them so they weren't touching on another. As soon as they are frozen they can be touching in the bags and stacked. To cook, simply thaw, then fry with a little bit of olive oil in the cast iron. Amazing!

Saturday Night Curry and Naan

Before:

After:

Tonight I made Vegetable Jalfrezi, an Indian-style curry from my beloved (see below) Jamie Oliver cookbook. Some of the ingredients are missing from the first photo, but you get the idea!

Here's the Recipe- it's online at Jamie's Website! I definitely recommend following his instructions; he describes how to make it perfectly, and I followed his instructions to the letter. However, the units he uses for some of the measurements need to be converted to cups and ounces, so here is the ingredient list using ounces and cups:

Vegetable Jalfrezi

1 medium onion
1 fresh red chile
a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves
a small bunch of fresh cilantro
2 red bell peppers
1 cauliflower
3 ripe tomatoes
1 small butternut squash
1 15oz can garbanzo beans
vegetable oil
unsalted butter
1/2 cup medium curry paste (such as Patak's), I used 1/4 cup of a hot curry paste and 1/4 cup of a mild curry paste, because the Co-op doesn't have any medium curry pastes.
2 14oz cans of diced tomatoes, or one 28 oz can works too
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
sea salt and freshly ground pepper (I actually didn't need either)
lemons
natural yogurt, I used greek!

Ahh this was sooo delish. It definitely took some time to make, but was well worth it. And now I have a ton of leftovers! Bonus!

Here's what I served with my curry:

lemon wedges, plain greek yogurt, and cilantro. .

NAAN!!!  Recipe found here.

And finally the curry was served on top of a bed of steamed, white rice with cilantro. Yum.

Naan

 Found here.

Cooked by my mother and me.

Enjoyed by EVERYONE.

Naan

{an East Indian flatbread}

1/2 cup warm water

2 tsp. active dry yeast

1 tsp. sugar

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 cup canola oil

1/3 cup plain yogurt

1 large egg

melted butter or oil, for frying

Mix together water, yeast, and sugar in a large bowl. Let it rest for about 5 minutes, or until it looks a little foamy.

Stir in flour, salt, oil, yogurt, and egg. Knead until it becomes a soft dough, with no streaks of flour left. Form into a sort of ball, then let rest, covered with a towel over the bowl, for an hour. The dough should double in size. 

Separate into 6-8 pieces (go more for eight- they puff up a lot when cooked!), and roll out into circles or ovals on a lightly floured surface. They should be pretty thin, but still thick enough so you can pick them up without tearing them.

To cook, heat a skillet (a well-seasoned cast iron works best for me) on medium high. Make sure the skillet is nice and preheated before you start cooking, so you can get the nice blistered effect. Drizzle a small amount of oil (I use olive), thinly coat the bottom of the pan with it, and plop one of your naan circles in it!

Cook, flipping as necessary, letting it get all nice and bubbly and almost slightly charred.

Then EAT. 

We enjoyed ours with Indian food, then the cooked leftovers were fine for lunch the next day!