Tag Archives: hummus

Simply the best? Well…

It started on the bus ride home from school:

“Ewww, I don’t want to eat ribs from a pig.”

And just like that, the battle was on.

Hey all, I’m back again with details on my next attempt to broaden Tillie’s food horizons. And this time, I thought I’d try something simple, like barbecue ribs.

But not just any ribs. Oh no, as the title of the recipe says, these are the Best-Ever Barbecued Ribs. With a name like that, how could anything possibly go wrong?

They didn’t for friends of ours, who introduced these meat sticks of heaven to us last summer. We’d been out to there place in Connecticut for the weekend, where they fed us quite wonderfully from the moment we got there. And on the last night, they dropped these on us, proving that there’s some real merit to that whole “save the best for last” saying.

I’m not going to go into too much detail about that magical night, but it was a revelation. And our friends spoke of the recipe itself in such awe-inspiring, mouthwatering platitudes: “First, you cook the ribs till they’re falling off the bone–three days in advance.” What, that’s crazy! “Then, you throw them on the grill for a few minutes to bring them back to life.” Huh, this is wild! (Those in-between-the-quotes phrases are the thoughts I had while they were talking and I was eating.)

I tried to replicate those ribs a couple of times, but had suffered a couple of missteps when it came to reserving the fat from the pre-cooking. Yes, you read that right: You hold on to the fat and use it later.

I know, crazy!

Anyway, this time, my fat was secure and ready to be put to use on those ribs.

I just had to get Tillie on board.

We got home and I went to work while she hung out with her mom. I fired up the grill and threw on the ribs, and put some broccoli to steam as well for the veggie component.

The ribs are going good, coming back to life, then I covered the slab in Sweet Baby Ray’s Honey Chipotle Barbecue Sauce, a nice touch, I thought. (And here’s where you’ll want to put your virtual bookmark for a big clue on how dinner turned out.)

I bring the best barbecued ribs ever into the house, de-bone one of them for Tillie and put on her plate with broccoli. Nancy fixes herself a plate and she joins Tillie at the table. I break out some leftover macaroni and cheese to warm up for me as a side, put the finishing touches on my plate and get ready to join them when I hear in that soft, almost-whiny, I tasted it but no dice tone:

“I don’t like the ribs.”

All before I even made my way to the table.

Then Nancy’s getting the hummus (the store kind, not our homemade version) for Tillie to dip her broccoli in. When I get to the table and ask what’s going on, Tillie says the ribs taste kind of sweet, kind of spicy, which basically meant that wasn’t doing it for her.

Darn you, Sweet Baby Ray!

Well, actually, darn me for not leaving a rib or two untouched, which I thought of initially, but forgot to do. Tillie ends up eating carrots and broccoli with hummus, and I’m left to think, what if?

I will make this again: After all, they are the best barbecued ribs ever. I’m sure after this, though, for Tillie, they might make their way to maybe-they’re-OK status, but I’ll take it!

A (c)love story

It’s only been a few days since my introductory post, but in case you forgot, let me repeat something from it:

“Let it be known now: I feel I can hang some in the kitchen, but by no way am I an expert in any dish.”

In other words, there’s bound to be some mishaps as Tillie and I go along. And I’d like to share one of those with you now, on our first food adventure.

So, I figured I’d take things light this go-around and instead of dropping something brand new on her, I decided to take a stab at making hummus, one of her all-time favorites. And I’d get her to help, too, especially in the tasting department because of my lack of experience with it, which, if you don’t mind, sets up for an important segue going forward with this blog.

I, Van Sias, aka Tillie’s dad, am the original fussy eater. You may have been a fussy eater as a kid, but I’m pretty sure I have you beat. Like, the only way I can eat any type of cold cut cold is if it’s been fried in a skillet beforehand. I don’t eat ketchup, mustard or mayo. I’ve been known to give my lunch salad a quick microwave treatment if it’s just out of the fridge.

I’m way, way, way better than I used to be, but I do have issues with condiments and various dips, which has made me resistant to trying such things as hummus.

Where Tillie downs it on the regular and has for most of her life, I only had my first bite of it a year ago at a kid’s birthday party. And I have to say, it wasn’t that bad. But that was the last time I tried it. I wanted to give it another go, but it’d be some that I made as opposed to the containers that are usually inhabiting our fridge.

I found a recipe on a website, Inspired Taste, for simple hummus–“simple” being a main attraction. I had my chickpeas, olive oil, lemon, tahini and garlic all set, plus the recipe came with a video to even walk me and Tillie through. I broke out the food processor and was ready to begin.

But simultaneously, I had to make dinner: and for some reason, I decided to be extra industrious that night and grill burgers. On a school night when my wife was coming home later. No worries at the time: I got this!

However, it ended up being a lot to handle. The asparagus I was grilling for myself to accompany my food ended up burnt to a crisp. The burgers came out great, though: Props to me. Meanwhile, over in the food processor…

I had tahini and Tillie-squeezed lemon juice just sitting there. I did manage to get it going and make it creamy. Then came the next step, or misstep:

The garlic.

I usually just buy garlic already minced and go from there, but this time I decided to use fresh garlic. And here’s where semantics kind of got me.

The above recipe calls for half a large clove, which, to me, seemed like a ton, so I only put in three of those little dudes, less than half.

See what I did there?

I thought the whole thing was called a clove and the things inside were just … things inside, or little dudes.

Anyway, I got everything blended up eventually while Nancy finished getting Tillie ready for bed. When they were all done, I let Tillie take the first bite, since she is the resident hummus expert.

And this is what I got, with a little dance accompanying it, and her saying “spicy, spicy, spicy!”

20140521-001527.jpg

I thought she was referring to the cumin, but when Nancy tasted it, she said it was pretty garlicky. And I said I put in less than half a clove. Then I thought about it and asked her, “Wait, are those little dudes the cloves? Oops!”

I took a bite, and yep, it was garlicky–like ultra-garlicky. Enough to give me weird dreams about garlic garlicky.

Tillie finished getting ready for bed–with an emphasis on teeth-brushing–and that was that.

The first bites were rough, but I lemon-juiced the heck out of it and I made a recovery.

In fact, when I came home from work the next evening, Tillie was actually snacking on it with vim and vigor while Nancy cooked dinner.

So our first rodeo wasn’t too bad, and I even got to learn something: There is no food actually called a “little dude.” It should have a real name, like clove, for instance.

Tillie handled that softball I threw her pretty well: It’ll be interesting to see how she responds as I start stepping it up some!