100% whole wheat curried flatbread. homemade bread.

After traveling for over 2 months this winter, I learned a lot about what I miss about the home kitchen. I moved around almost every week and could not realistically carry my whole pantry of baking supplies and spices with me in my backpack, so the food I ate was simple. This was pretty easy to do in Hawaii, where juicy papayas and avocados grow all over and easily satisfy a low-budget traveller like myself. 

Halfway through the trip, however,  I was craving foods like kimchi and sprouts and of course, freshly baked bread. These things that take time and patience and a home base to create. I yearned for my own kitchen space to make a mess and experiment in without intruding on my hosts. Of course, my day to day experience was full of hiking and swimming and learning and failing how to surf, so I might not have wanted to spend hours babysitting my rising bread inside. In any case, it felt great coming back and rewinding into winter (still very mild) here in Oregon and cozying up next to a warm oven full of my kind of bread. 

This bread is from Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes A Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François. Their approach is unique and very useful for a busy schedule, as there is no kneading involved and the recipe makes enough for baking multiple loaves a week. Very versatile, very simple, and very delicious!

a guide to hummus. homemade healthy.

Many of us have made hummus. There are loads of recipes all over the internet that will tell you how many cloves of garlic to put in and how much oil to add to make it just right. But after I forgot to measure the dry garbanzo beans the night before, my thoughts of writing down an accurate recipe for hummus were gone. I don't think I've really ever used a strict recipe for hummus (or for much else for that matter), so I feel as though outlining some guidelines and ideas on how to improve you hummus-making technique will be much more appropriate. And this way you have the ability to amp up the garlic to extreme levels, if that's how you roll, or keep it mellow. I'll also add some ideas for addition to make your everyday hummus experience novel and exciting. 

While I was living in the Berkeley Student Cooperatives during college, we had a work-shift where housemates made hummus for communities of 50 to 150 every week(because berkeley hippies demand hummus!). They'd cook massive pots of beans, foam frothing in billowy clouds, and overheat the food processor after 12 batches of the stuff. It would all end up in 5 gallon kitchen bins for others to smear on sandwiches whenever they pleased. It was great to have unlimited homemade hummus around all the time, however, I was never satisfied with how they made it. Maybe it was because I was the biggest foodie in the house and probably the only one that cared enough. In any case, I always hated the grainy oily texture that made it taste too heavy and over-seasoned. Hundreds of coop residents were coming to believe that this was what homemade hummus tasted like. I couldn't really taste the beans themselves. Something had to change. 

coffee n' nibs chocolate bars. homemade sweets.

Coffee n' Nibs Chocolate Bars. Homemade Sweets

Last minute Valentine's Day treats can be spectacular...and exceptionally easy. This was my thought process as I impulsively bought a bag of chocolate baking chips today, the day before Valentine's Day, to make something nice with. I flipped through some cook books, passing over chocolate mousse and chocolate tart recipes due to the long list of ingredients. No energy for that right now. I wanted something with chocolate, just chocolate, and mostly chocolate as the ingredients. Nothing fancy, you know. Rarely does chocolate need much to make it delicious.  

I actually thought it was Valentine's Day today, don't ask me why, but either way, either day, you could make this quick chocolatey treat within 30 minutes and be a superstar lover. 

I just got back from traveling for a month in Hawaii, and brought back some raw cocoa beans and coffee grown on the Hilo side of the Big Island. With these in mind, I crushed both types of beans in my heavy duty mortar and pestle and sprinkled the crumbs over a layer of melted chocolate to make some super simple and satisfying dessert. Why buy a chocolate bar when you can do it yourself and make that special someone (could be a friend or yourself too!) feel extra loved?

Here's to love. To love of another, to love of yourself. To the love of chocolate, for goodness sake.