+5 Food of Eating Recipe Test #1: Peanut Butter and Jalapeño Hummus

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, I’ve been busy with lots of projects, including preparations for the +5 Food of Eating tasting party this Saturday. There’s going to be awesome food and games, and some awesome drinks provided by local brewery JP Das Brew!

As background, for those of you who don’t recall, I’m contributing some of my time in the kitchen to test some recipes for the upcoming tabletop gaming themed cookbook, +5 Food of Eating. Tiffany has been kind enough to let me blog about some of the recipes I’ll be testing!

This week I’ll be testing a recipe I honestly wasn’t so sure about, Peanut Butter and Jalapeno Hummus. I like hummus, and I like peanut butter and jalapenos, but putting them all together did not seem like the most obvious thing, but it did make sense on some level. Tahini is often located near peanut butter and I’ve had roasted pepper hummus too, so this is something still pepper related.

I have to say, it actually works! The peanuts are more complimentary than overwhelming, and the jalapeno pepper added a nice bit of kick, but I’m a bit curious how a serrano or a bit of habanero would do instead.

Prepare to Gougere!

A few weeks back, I gave my first try at using choux pastry to make profiteroles, most definitely a sweet treat. This time I am using it as a vessel to serve of some cheesy goodness, seeing as how cheese is this week’s theme for the 52 week cooking challenge.

Oh, a quick aside, here is a shout out to a young person in PA who has just started checking out the blog and going through some challenges right now.  There are people thinking of you and rooting for things to work out! All the best luck to ya kid.

Ok back to business.

The preparation is called the gougere and is prepared almost exactly like the choux pastry for the profiteroles, with possibly the slight change of slightly more salt. And of course the addition of cheese. I’d like to take the time to add a caveat that one not go too crazy with the salt depending on the cheese you intend to use.

If you had, say a particularly salty Parmigiano-Reggiano, rather than adding a full teaspoon extra of salt, you might just want to go for a pretty big pinch.

And if you don’t care about looks and feel very lazy, they can end up rather flat looking. But still wonderfully creamy and cheesy on the inside.

Week 10–Book Inspired: Ja-Pan #16! Mt. Fuji Like Bread AKA Yakitate!! Ja-Pan’s Take on Naan!

Thanks for coming to check out the blog again. Something a bit different this time. This time the challenge on Reddit was to make a dish that was movie or book inspired.

So I went and made something. So what the hell is it some of you may be asking? I might actually be cheating here since rather than a novel kind of book it’s from the manga/anime Yakitate!! Ja-Pan, which follows the story of some baker in the pursuit of bread, with the focus being on protagonist Azuma Kazuma, both something of a bumpkin and baking genius who has come up with several classic bread recipes out of his own head, and having no idea of the original recipe, refers to them as Ja-pan, a pun on being Japanese and pan, or bread.

So what the hell is this you thing I have presented here you might ask? Why it is Ja-pan #16 obviously!