simple hummus for a simple sunday

If you're new to Zürich and you venture into a grocery store in search of mayonnaise, you will likely come out empty handed, convinced that the Swiss don't do mayo. You'll say you looked at the condiment shelves, saw the mustards, dressings and ketchups, but simply did not see a jar of mayo. That one little word, 'jar', is where you were mislead. Mayo comes in a tube, a tube that is almost identical in shape and functionality to a toothpaste tube. I kid you not (for those of us who fear mayo, placing it in a tube does not help, at all). A tube. Of mayo. Just squeeze, and out squirts a pretty little spiral of mayo onto your sandwich. Okay, enough of that. What I'm trying to say is that when you go into a grocery store in a foreign country it's not always guaranteed that they will have what you are looking for or that what you are looking for will look like it's supposed to. The mayo problem extends to yeast, baking soda and baking powder, which are all sold in individually wrapped packages. It is also true for milk, which comes in boxes, pouches or narrow plastic containers. It is not true, however, for hummus. Hummus is simply not a Swiss grocery staple and you are unlikely to find it in most of the markets no matter how many different shaped containers you look for. I'm not a hummus fanatic, but I do like it every once and awhile, and awhile happened to be this past weekend, so I set off to make some of my own.

I googled and search and did some more googling and eventually settled on an Alice Waters' recipe from The Art of Simple Food, a book that had been sitting on my shelf all along.

* cooks note: I doubled the recipe because we were sharing with friends. Doubling isn't actually such a bad idea if you aren't sharing but are still going through the hassle of soaking and then cooking the dried chickpeas - perhaps you can just give extra to a friend. Also, I added more olive oil than the recipe called for and made this adjustment in the recipe below. I just didn't find that there was quite enough for taste or consistency.

** for Zürich folks, you can get the tahini paste at Coop and I would guess at the Turkish market on Josefstrasse, behind HB. I found the chickpeas at Jemoli, but I bet you can find them at one of the larger markets

hummus

3/4 cup dried chickpeas (soaked for 8hrs or overnight - simply place in a bowl and cover with a fair amount of water)

1/4 cup tahini

1 cup fresh lemon juice

2 garlic cloves peeled and pressed through a garlic press

3 tablespoons olive oil

salt to taste

ground cumin if desired

drain the chickpeas that have been soaking. Place them in a pot and cover generously with water. Bring the water to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer. Let them cook until tender, about 1.5-2 hrs

drain the cooked chickpeas, reserving the cooking water. Puree the chickpeas in a food processor or with an immersion blender until smooth, adding some of the cooking liquid (no more than 1/4 cup) to achieve desired consistency.

blend/stir in remaining ingredients. taste as you go and adjust amounts accordingly.

I was about to sit down at our dining table to enjoy a nice hummus and veggie lunch, when it dawned on me that I hadn't been outside all day. Thankfully hummus is easily transportable and I brought my lunch and a magazine to the park, where I laid out a soft cotton blanket and stretched out.

I was appalled yesterday when I realized I hadn't been outside, and funny enough, the same thing has happened to me today. I've been checking things off my to-do list and so far all of those things have been inside tasks. When you don't have to hustle out the door in the morning I guess you have to put 'GO OUTSIDE" on your to-do list.

Off I go...

autumn soup (with bacon and cheddar!)

This past weekend wasn't particularly fall-ish, with it's muggy days and hazy skies, but then again it wasn't especially summery either with daylight fading before dinner was even served and chilly nights that make you thankful for a cozy comforter. The weather seems to have a hold on me these days. I think I've probably mentioned it in every post since I first 'felt' fall. No matter what the weather, it was a perfect weekend to spend exploring the city with our visitor! We went on a day trip (more on that later), we explored the flea market, we had a beer by the side of the lake and we went on a couple long walks. It was heavenly. Heavenly until I had to walk Kerry to the train and say goodbye. Off she went, towards the airport and eventually Kenya, and here I am still in Zürich. And of course she had to leave on a a Sunday, one of the more depressing days in the Swiss week, when everything is closed and the city feels deserted (aside from that weird bike/balloon fair that was happening alongside the Limmat). Obviously it was time to do some cooking, but what to cook? Ker and I had chatted a bit about our similar lunch conundrum, which is basically, 'what on earth to eat for lunch?' We both love yogurt with honey and muesli for breakfast and hot savory meals for dinner, but aren't especially keen on the cold sandwich or salad that typically make up lunch. I'm generally not a huge leftovers fan, but she convinced me, as we munched on day old risotto and pork tenderloin, that it is actually the perfect lunch. When leftovers aren't an option then it's soup for Kerry. She'll tell you that she happily ate the same lentil soup almost everyday for lunch when she was clerking in Brooklyn. It was warm and satisfying and when you include the pita that it came with, just enough to hold her until dinner, or at least until that afternoon snack.

Soup was the perfect comfort food for my mood yesterday. But I wasn't sure I'd be able to find all the ingredients at the train station grocery store, which is the only one open on Sundays. No trips to specialty stores or farmers markets, I'd be stuck with what they had, which always questionable on a Sunday because the market is packed to the gills with people, people who seem convinced that they'll never be able to buy food again. Thankfully the hoards of people left some butternut squash and apples for me and I set out to make this Autumn inspired vegetable soup.

The soup is almost entirely vegetable based. It's delicious on it's own, but for some reason I have a mental block where I can't eat soup without some type of bread, whether it's a slice, a roll or a crouton. When a soup is smooth I need some crunch. That's where the cheddar croutons come in, oh yeah, and the bacon bits! crunch crunch. The bacon and the cheddar pair well with each other, obviously, but they also pair really well with the butternut-apple flavor of the soup.

This recipe caught my eye when I saw that it started with bacon! It's from the Gourmet website.

butternut- apple soup - very slightly adapted from above recipe

- 8 slices of bacon, cut crosswise into 1/2" pieces

- 2 celery ribs, chopped

- 1 carrot, chopped

- 1 medium onion, chopped

- 1 leek, chopped

- 1/4 tsp cinnamon

- 3/4 lb boiling potatoes

- 3 medium Granny Smith apples, or other tart apples

- 1 1/2 lb butternut squash, peeled, seeded and 1/2" pieces (3 1/2 to 4 cups)

- 2 cups reduced-sodium chicken stock or broth (since it's hard to find in Switzerland and expensive when I do find it, I make my own roughly based on this recipe)

- 2 to 2 1/2 cups of water

- Garnish sour cream

cheddar croutons

- 1/2 loaf of wurzelbrot (twisted bread) or whatever leftover bread you have on hand, cut into 1"x1" pieces

- 1/4 tsp of ground cumin, more or less to taste

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 2 tablespoons olive oil

- 2/3 cup of grated cheddar cheese

Cook bacon in a heavy pot over medium heat, stirring occasionally so that it doesn't stick to the bottom, until crisp. Spread out on a paper towel to let the grease drain, leaving roughly 2 tablespoons of fat in the pot (add vegetable oil if your bacon doesn't yield enough fat).

Cook celery, carrot, onion and leek in fat in pot over low heat, keeping the pot covered and stirring occasionally. Cook for roughly 10-12 minutes until vegetables are soft and translucent but not brown. (If you aren't a bacon fan you can always use 2 tablespoons of olive oil instead)

While the vegetable are cooking peel and roughly chop 2 apples, the potatoes and the butternut squash. Stir into the onion mix, adding the stock, water, 1tsp of salt and 1/2 tsp of pepper. Turn up the heat and once the liquid begins to boil turn it back down to a simmer and let it simmer for 20minutes until the vegetable are tender.

While your soup is cooking make the croutons. Preheat the oven to 400ºF/200ºC and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. In a bowl mix the bread with olive oil, salt, cumin and olive oil. Place the bread on a baking sheet in one even layer. Bake the bread for 5 minutes to toast it, keep an eye on it, you just want it to be lightly golden brown. Remove from oven, sprinkle the cheese over the pieces and then place back in the oven to melt the cheese. Don't worry about the cheese that lands on the aluminum foil and not on the bread, that will turn into nice little cheese crisps.

Using an immersion blender, puree the soup right in the pot. If using a blender, puree the soup in a few batches. Add additional water to achieve desired consistency. Serve hot with bacon, croutons, sour cream and some sliced apple.

The soup quickly became a vehicle through which to eat bacon and cheddar croutons. We kept refilling on the toppings without adding anymore soup. Cognizant of our expanding waistlines and of the preciousness of these fleeting summer days we went for a long walk up by the zoo. The haze obscured our view of the mountains, but it was still nice walk and a relaxing, albeit sweaty, end to a wonderful weekend.

I'm cozied up here with my second cup of coffee, but I'm thinking I should switch to ice coffee. In the time it has taken me to write this post the weather has shifted from cool and foggy to hot and hazy. And wow, I made this second batch of coffee really strong. Maybe it will propel me to actually get some things done today, or maybe it will just get me so riled up that I can't accomplish anything at all.

If you are looking for some events to put on your calendar this week be sure to visit Girlfriend Guide to Zürich, where this post is being featured as the recipe of the week. I know they have a Zürich Film Festival offer and some upcoming Girls Nights Out.

Okay off to try and check some things off the to-do list.