Roasted Carrot Hummus

This has got to be one of my favorite homemade hummuses. The roasted carrots make it SO special! The roasting of the carrots does make this hummus a bit longer to prep, but it is worth it! I used FRESH chickpeas with this recipe, but if you do not have time to cook the chickpeas or do not have fresh chickpeas on hand, 2 boxes will do just fine.

This recipe makes a good amount of hummus. You can eat it all, give some to a friend, or store it in the fridge for the week and eat it with pita chips, cucumbers, celery and carrots.. is that weird to eat carrot hummus with carrots?

You will need some kind of bender for this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 4 large sized carrots - roughly chopped
• EVOO for roasting carrots
• 2 tbs EVOO to put in HUMMUS while mixing
• salt (you will add salt to the carrots and then more to the hummus while mixing)
• pepper
• 1 cup raw dried chick peas (you will be cooking these, I did it in a crockpot just add water and cook for a couple hours on high) OR 2 Boxes/BPA free cans of chickpeas
•  1/4 cup tahini
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon turmeric 
• 1 garlic clove chopped
• Juice of 1/2 large lemon or 1 small lemon
• 1/2 cup-2/3 cup water - depends on how thick your hummus ends up being. Add water as needed.

Directions: 

* If using fresh chickpeas cook them according to package,

• preheat oven to 400 degrees
• place roughly chopped carrots coated with EVOO, salt and pepper in the oven for about 20 minutes or until tender. 
• While carrots are cooking squeeze your lemon, measure out your 2 tbs of EVOO, 1/2 C tahini and all of your spices (cumin, paprika, turmeric and salt). 
• Dump the chickpeas, cooked carrots and all your mise en place (aka all the food you prepped) in the blender- don't forget your garlic clove.
• Blend and slowly add in water. You will need to pause and scrape down the sides and then start to blend again.
• Your hummus is done when it is smooth and all mixed. It will be a beautiful orange color and will taste AWESOME! You can serve it in a bowl and add a bit of EVOO to the top if you wish.

ENOY! XO

Zoodles & Homemade Pesto

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I had my sister in law over this weekend visiting from NYC. She mentioned homemade pesto and how you can pretty much make it from anything green! She also said I should give a shout out to Bitter Sweet Sara. I put the untraditional pesto to the test and it was good! Above are my zoodles and homemade pesto. 

Making the zoodles are easy! The hard part for me was getting the right proportions of greens to nuts to cheese to oil. I did a little investigation and took a poll online, and the proportions below seem to work great! 

• 2 cups greens, 1/3 cups nuts, 1/2 cup grated hard cheese, and 1/2 cup oil
• this blog also talks about pesto and ratios

I used basil, arugula, baby kale, cilantro and parsley. Stems and all! I also used EVOO, walnuts and parmesan cheese. I might have gone a little green crazy....

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What do you put in your pesto? What do you put your pesto on?

Mango, Lime, Chili, Sea Salt Salad

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YUM! In this mango salad you will find sweet, salty, tangy and hot flavors that all come together to make an awesome experience in your mouth! A must try for the summer.

Ingredients:

• 2 mangos
• Juice of 1 lime and some zest
• 1-2 tsp red chili pepper flakes (more or less if desired)
• Sea Salt (Pink Salt if you have)

Directions:

• Cut mango into cubes
• squeeze lime juice
• add in salt, chili pepper flakes and mix everything
• cover and let it sit in fridge for at least 20 minutes before serving

Enjoy! 

Easy (and delicious) Baked Falafel

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 I really enjoy falafel. The two best falafels I ever had were in Israel and the Jewish quarter in Paris. I have never tried to make Falafel at home because deep frying things is messy and not really my thing. But baking things, I love baking things. This recipe is the bomb dot com (Amy if you are reading this, that was for you).

This recipe is so good. I mean SO good! Camera man approved, and we all know how critical he is. I literally just ate a plate of falafel. Next time I will either put it in a pita with all fun veggies, or make it with a great side salad: cucumber and tomatoes diced very small with EVOO and lemon juice. Something like this.

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Ingredients: 

• 1 Cup Raw garbanzo beans (aka chick peas) these beans will be soaked in water for at LEAST an hour- over night is great. DO NOT USE CANNED BEANS- it will NOT work for this recipe. 
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley leaves
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp coriander (if you do not have coriander do not worry- just skip it)
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 garlic cloves minced
• 1/2 small onion or 1/4 of a medium diced
• 2-3 tbs EVOO

Directions:

• preheat oven to 375 (I like to put the pan in the oven so it is hot when you put the falafel on it)
• soak beans for at least an hour -or overnight in water
• drain beans and rinse
• dice onions and garlic
• put everything in food processor: beans, oil, onions and garlic, dry spices cilantro and parsley
• mix for about 1-2 minutes or until it is well mixed
• Take the pan out let it cool off just a little. Add a generous amount of EVOO to the pan. Make little balls with the falafel mixture. Mixture will be softer than you expect it to be. Do not worry if it is a little runny.
• Bake the balls for 15 minutes - turn them over with spatula and bake for another 10-12 minutes. You want a little browning on top. 

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TAHINI DRESSING:

This dressing is very versatile and it can be used as a salad dressing or you can dump it  right into a pita wrap filled with falafel and veggies. Or you can dunk your falafel right into the dressing like I did!

I might need to perfect this dressing a bit but I think this works:

• juice from 1 large lemon
• 2 tbs of tahini
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cumin
• a little water to get it mixing and some EVOO (pour maybe 2 TBS of EVOO and as much water as you think to make it the consistency you want. Maybe 1/4 cup ?)
• sometimes garlic powder is good!
• BLEND TOGETHER :)

I rarely ever measure the dressing and I kind of just go for it! Play around with this dressing recipe or look up another one that you like. Let me know how it goes! How did you eat your falafel? 

XO

Whole Wheat Couscous with Cherries & Arugula.

Incase you didn't see the recipe that I posted on Instagram and Facebook I thought I would share with you an easy and yummy couscous salad I made recently.  I made a few changes like taking out the cheese and adding more EVOO at the end. 

I love arugula. It is my staple green along with spinach and kale. Arugula salads are the best. Mix it with some EVOO, lemon juice, fresh parm cheese and pine nuts and you are good to go. I made this for lunch today:

• arugula
• hard boiled egg
• apples
• cucumbers
• avocado
• evoo - balsamic - lemon juice - turmeric - pepper

Enjoy!