Hummus with Tomato and Kalamata Olive Garnish

The grey cottage had its share of decadent holiday food over the past week. It was a wonderful food fest, but yesterday and today SB and I have been stepping back from all the cookies, drinks, and rich leftovers. Yesterday afternoon, lunch was nothing more than hummus, pita chips or tortilla chips and a cold beer. Today, it was chicken and red lentil soup with oyster crackers and glasses of Vouvray. Simple and far more austere than the past week !

Simple Garlic Hummus

Ingredients:

1 -15 oz can chickpeas, drained and simmered for twenty minutes

1/4 c. lemon juice

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 c. water from hot pan of chickpeas

1/3 c. tahini

1/8 tsp. smoked paprika

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

a pinch cayenne pepper

2 tbsp. EVOO, plus a bit more for drizzling over the garnishes

Garnishes: chopped tomato, chopped Kalamata olives

Place the ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and whiz until smooth as butter ... scrape into a pretty plate or bowl. Serve with choice of dippers ( tortilla chips, pita chips, GF crackers or crudité). Pop a beer and enjoy.

Happy New Year, all ! Hope you, too, have some healthy snacks amongst all the heavy cheesy snacks and sweet desserts that come our way at this time of year !

Staten Island Style Cod

This is a beautiful and spicy platter of cod fillet ! Years ago, I picked up the South Beach Diet Cookbook and went through most of the recipes. This recipe, while written for Chilean Sea Bass, adapts really well to Atlantic Cod.  Silent Bob and I have been going meatless increasingly, as we age and as we read more and more how the agriculture of the meat industry is wrecking the environment and the quality of lives of  'the crop'. To boot, sea stocks are increasingly overfished and harmed by the increase in fish farming ... aargh! It seems we humans need to sit back on our heels and really think about what we eat, how we produce it, and how much we consume. That's a whole book of ranting, though.

I haven't bought fish in weeks and it is my birthday week. This platter of fish was my gift to myself. Easy, very spicy, but freshened up by the addition of chopped fresh herbs and lemon. This is how I did it.