Friday, May 27, 2011

My Manic Kitchen

If I had a cooking blog, this is what I'd call it. Of course, I don't have a cooking blog (I have what one might refer to as a "Rambling Blog") and there are plenty of other people (like my talented friend Mandy) who have excellent and inspiring cooking blogs. I follow in the footsteps of giants when it comes to cooking - I typically take someone else's excellent recipe and revise it as necessary for my household (right now that involves taking out the dairy, eggs, gluten, and sugar - you'd be surprised how good most recipes still taste).

I don't have a lot to offer in terms of innovative cooking techniques or recipes. What I can teach you, however, is how to maximize your ADHD in the kitchen so that you can knock out a stunning number of dishes in a short amount of time while simultaneously working through legal issues for  your family business. My style doesn't lend itself to beautiful pictures (unless you find flour fluff spread all over a kitchen visually stunning) but I did take some snapshots of the finished products so you can see what I'm talking about as I give you my timeline.

The mania began yesterday afternoon - I rushed to make my second batch of these awesome chocolate cupcakes posted on My Real Food Life . Both kids loved them and I wanted to make sure and have a supply before we went out to the grandparents for the weekend so that my son would have sweets available to him. I made more than just a dozen but they disappear quickly.


This morning, I got the kids to school at 7:30, then dashed up north to the Williamson County Humane Society to return the three bottle-fed puppies we'd been fostering for the last week. After that, I rushed to Whole Foods to stock up on groceries and baking supplies. I was back at home by 9-ish and the true cooking mania began. 

First on the agenda were buckwheat waffles. I mixed up a double recipe (inspired and closely following a recipe found in this book) and as I slowly made a huge stack-o-waffles (to be frozen for future breakfasts), I got on the phone with my dad to work through next steps for his business. 


I made a double recipe of these waffles because my son has already told me he simply loves them, so I felt confident in making tons for breakfast over the next week or two.

Once I finished my call with dad, the waffles were still going (it takes a while when you can only make two at a time) so I started on my homemade hummus. My Artist's Way group is coming to my house tonight and I wanted to have at least one option that was homemade.


Man....I hit it out of the park with this hummus. As a matter of fact, it is SO GOOD that I'm compelled to write the recipe down here - not because I think my six readers are dying to try it, but because I want to remember how I made it! I kid you not - this is the best hummus ever created in the history of the planet. Or at least in the history of Austin, Texas.

Jenn's Hummus

Ingredients:
2 cans organic garbanzo beans (drained and rinsed)
1 fresh red pepper
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup Tahini
1 - 2 Tablespoons Harissa extra virgin olive oil (I get my flavored OO's from Con Olio here in Austin)
1/4 cup Lemon extra virgin olive oil
salt to taste
pepper to taste

Cut red pepper in half, smear with Harissa EVOO, and roast in oven - watch closely - it just takes a few minutes.

Add all the ingredients in a blender and blend away. Enjoy the view as the hummus turns slightly pink.

After the waffles were cooling and the hummus blended, I started on the Sorghum Banana Bread from that same rice-free gluten cookbook I used for the waffles. Again - this has been a recipe staple for us over the last month although this time around I think I got carried away with the amount of smooshed banana I put into the mix. You wouldn't think of that as a problem, but it doesn't seem to be cooking as quickly as normal. As I write this part of the post, I'm waiting for it to come out of the oven and I need it to hurry up because I'm trying to make it into work today for a few hours! Here's a picture of it right before I put it in the oven for six more minutes....



Once I popped the banana bread in the oven, I started chopping veggies to go with the hummus because I want everything to be all ready for my friends tonight. Now I've finished my blog post and am about to run into work for two hours before I pick my son up after school. I've cooked quite a few things, chopped veggies without injury to myself or others, cleaned the kitchen, and blogged in three and a half hours.

Move fast and cook with gusto. That's my motto!

5 comments:

mica said...

The Harissa olive oil... is it peppery? Smooth? More description please, so I can find something comparable. =)

Megan Willome said...

love this, Jenn. I think your son's food issues are allowing you to indulge your ADHA-cooking mania in a way you've longed for. Everything sounds delish!

Megan Willome said...

ADHD. Sorry

JennInAustin said...

It's true! It was meant to be.

JennInAustin said...

Oh, sorry Mica - the Harissa olive oil is hot and spicy. So here's the solution...you get yourself down here to Austin and hang out with me for a while (indulging in a few happy hours) and we'll buy you some of that tasty olive oil. Sound good?