Even though it’s extremely easy and quick to make, many people still buy commercial hummus. I don’t understand this, and can only assume that it’s due to their not having a recipe on hand. Here it is. Stop paying $5 for a tiny tub of hummus.

Hummus bi Tahini

4 slices onion
2-4 cloves garlic
2 cans chickpeas (or equivalent volume rehydrated, cooked dry chickpeas), drained
juice of 1 medium lemon
2-4 Tbs sesame tahini
1/2 c. olive oil
dash cayenne pepper or Tabasco sauce
1/2tsp cumin
salt and pepper to taste

Mince onion and garlic in food processor. Add chickpeas and puree. Add remaining ingredients, pouring in the oil while processing the hummus until it reaches the desired texture. Serve with fresh pita, hot sauce, assorted pickles, and fresh vegetables.

Originally published at Jeremy's Tasting Notes &c.. Please leave any comments there.

Just a little something I whipped up tonight, enjoyed, and then realized that this particular combination of ingredients doesn’t show up in CocktailDB, my usual reference. It’s not nearly as toxic as aconite/monkshood/wolfsbane, but it seemed a decent name for something that relies heavily on Benedictine…

The Monkshood Cocktail
1.5oz brandy
.75oz lemon juice
.5oz Benedictine
.5oz dry vermouth
dash Angostura bitters
dash real grenadine

Combine ingredients, shake over ice, double strain into a cocktail glass.

Originally published at Jeremy's Tasting Notes &c.. Please leave any comments there.

By request, one of my favorite dishes.

Beans and Rice With Avocado Salad

10oz dried yellow (Mayacoba/Canary) beans, soaked in water 6 hours to overnight
2 rice cups (360ml) Jasmine (white or brown) or Thai Red Cargo rice
2-4 avocados (depending on size)
2 large shallots
2 medium-sized ripe tomatoes
1oz fresh squeezed lime juice
1tbs chili flakes, fine
top-quality aromatic Extra Virgin Olive Oil
salt and pepper

Bring soaked beans to a boil in a pot of water, then reduce heat and simmer slowly, covered, until tender (several hours). 10 minutes before finished, add salt to taste (it takes a few minutes for the beans to absorb the salt). Drain the beans, reserving the cooking liquid, and set aside. In an electric rice cooker, cook rice with some salt and the bean cooking liquid. A few minutes before the rice cycle completes, add the cooked beans to the rice and stir well. While the rice cooks, prepare the salad.

Slice avocadoes in half, removing the pit. Score with crosshatches and scoop into a bowl. Dice tomatoes and mince shallots very fine and add to the bowl along with lime juice, salt, pepper, and chili flake. Add a good splash of the aromatic olive oil and stir well, trying not to completely mash the avocado cubes. Serve the cold salad atop a bowl of the hot rice and beans so that the heat from the rice brings out the aroma of the oil. Top with additional olive oil if desired.

Originally published at Jeremy's Tasting Notes &c.. Please leave any comments there.

I read about this cocktail by Daniel Shoemaker at cocktailnerd’s blog (he found it in the July/August 2008 issue of Imbibe!) and thought it looked both tasty and mixable given the contents of my liquor cabinet. And lo, it came to pass. And it was sweet, and strong, and good. (2oz of base spirit, and then another 1.5oz of other alcoholic ingredients)

Elan Vital
* 2 oz Full-bodied Dutch-style gin
* 3/4 oz Yellow Chartreuse
* 1/2 oz Dry vermouth
* 1/4 oz Creme de Violette
* 1/4 oz orgeat

Fill a mixing glass halfway with ice. Add ingredients and stir well to chill. Strain liquid into a saucer and garnish with freshly grated orange peel.

Originally published at Jeremy's Tasting Notes &c.. Please leave any comments there.

I purchased a package of oxtails at Costco, with enough for two batches of stew. Here’s the first one I made a couple nights ago. I had forgotten to soak beans for it, so I used canned beans, and they actually worked quite well. It’s a bit approximate because I’m not sure I remember it all.

Braised Oxtail Stew #1
2lb (approximately 5-6) oxtails
2 cans diced tomato with liquid
1 can pinto beans
2 large onions, diced
5 cloves garlic, fine dice
chicken stock
bay leaves
oregano
allspice
habanero hot sauce

Trim oxtails of excess fat, then rinse in a water/white vinegar mix. Pat dry and season. Heat some vegetable oil in a heavy pot until nearly smoking. Brown the oxtails on all sides and remove to a plate. Pour off excess fat, then cook onions in the fat until they soften and begin to brown. Add tomatoes to pan, deglazing with the liquid. Add the oxtails, garlic, bay, oregano, and allspice. Add stock to nearly cover the meat. Cover and simmer over very low heat until oxtails are tender, several hours at least. Remove oxtails, trim meat from bones, and replace meat in the stew. Add beans 15 minutes before end of cooking. Season to taste with habanero hot sauce, salt, and pepper. Serve with rice.

Originally published at Jeremy's Tasting Notes &c.. Please leave any comments there.

The classic Aviation Cocktail calls for gin, lemon juice, and maraschino (or, even more oldschool, apparently, substitute violette for the maraschino). This is a cocktail you probably won’t find on the list of favorites at your local bar. It’s been getting a lot of press among cocktail nerds recently, but I can’t say that I particularly like it. Maybe it’s just that Luxardo Maraschino is vile in anything over trace amounts? Anyway, I felt like adapting it tonight, and realized that I had half a lime waiting for juicing, but no lemons picked. So, the resulting cocktail:

The Aviation Variation (yes, it rhymes!)
2oz gin
1/2oz fresh lime juice
1/4oz Violette

Shake over ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

I actually much prefer this to the original. It’s more refreshing, more subtle, a bit less sour while still tart, and has a nice hint of violet candies. The lime seems to complement the violet nicely. Not my favorite drink, but quite tasty, and one I’d serve to cocktail-nerd friends. Maybe not to everyone.

Originally published at Jeremy's Tasting Notes &c.. Please leave any comments there.

This is a cocktail I whipped up this evening as a “first step” towards making drinks in the tiki genre. I really can’t claim to understand it yet, but I’m working on figuring it out. This drink is aromatic and slightly tart, pretty well balanced. Both my wife and I enjoyed it.

The First Step Cocktail

1.5oz dark rum
.5oz lime juice
.5oz orange/cognac liqueur
.25oz maraschino
2 dashes allspice syrup or pimento dram

Shake all ingredients over ice, strain into a rocks glass with fresh ice. Garnish with a lychee.

Originally published at Jeremy's Tasting Notes &c.. Please leave any comments there.

I found this cocktail on CocktailDB while looking for a drink containing grenadine. Turns out I like this one, and it’s visually appealing, too… a lovely opaque pink color. I use homemade grenadine not as sweet (or as red) as the artificial products in supermarkets, so I use about twice as much as the recipe calls for.

Pink Creole
1.5oz gold rum (I use white rum, all my dark rums are much too dark)
.5oz fresh lime juice
.25oz grenadine
.25oz heavy cream
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters

Shake over ice and double strain into a chilled cocktail glass. This is definitely a drink where little chips of ice are out of place, thus the secondary strainer.

Originally published at Jeremy's Tasting Notes &c.. Please leave any comments there.

This was a drink I found at CocktailDB while looking for something containing both grenadine and lemon juice, which I had on hand. I thought it was quite tasty.

Climax
1 egg white
1oz applejack
1/4oz grenadine
1/2oz fresh lemon juice
1/4oz dry vermouth
1/4tsp sugar

Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a sprinkle of nutmeg.

Originally published at Jeremy's Tasting Notes &c.. Please leave any comments there.

Everyone’s blogging about this one, so I figured I’d try it and see how it works. I used the Embury sour formula approach: 8 parts gin, 2 parts lemon juice, 1 part Maraschino. It’s actually very tasty, but don’t use any more Maraschino - it’d become undrinkable. As it is, it has a nice sour lemon flavor with a little aromatic spice from the Maraschino.

Originally published at Jeremy's Tasting Notes &c.. Please leave any comments there.

For before dinner, a bitter/floral pink cocktail:

The Thorny Rose Cocktail
0.5oz Campari
1.5oz Hendrick’s gin
0.5oz lime
1tsp sugar
0.5tsp rose water
2 dash orange bitters

Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a twist of orange, making sure the oils land on the surface of the drink.

And then, for after dinner, something a bit more sweet and mellow:

The Jujube Cocktail
1.5oz Hendrick’s Gin
0.5oz Grand Marnier
0.5oz Poire William au Cognac
3 dashes peach bitters

Stir over ice, strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a twist of lemon.

Originally published at Jeremy's Tasting Notes &c.. Please leave any comments there.

Jeremy’s Favorite Rice and Beans

heirloom beans (I like Borlotti or Ojo de Cabra) or pinto if unavailable
brown rice
allspice
oregano
salt
pepper
fragrant(!) extra-virgin olive oil (I like Trader Joe’s Australian - cheap and good)
Pecorino Romano cheese
(optional) toasted pine nuts

I like to do this with about 3 parts brown rice to 2 parts beans. Soak beans overnight, then cook in crock pot until tender. Add salt at least 10 minutes before finished. Drain beans, reserving liquid. Prepare brown rice using a mixture of the remaining bean liquid and water in rice cooker along with the allspice and oregano and salt. When the rice has cooked, stir in the beans. To serve, scoop rice and beans into serving bowls, drizzle with olive oil, top with fresh-cracked pepper and grated Pecorino Romano, and optional toasted pine nuts.

Originally published at Jeremy's Tasting Notes &c.. Please leave any comments there.

Traquair Hosue Ale Clone
(Strong Scotch Ale)
(Original recipe from BYO)
-----------------------------------------------
3# Briess Gold DME
5.6# Coopers Gold LME
2# Pale Ale Malt
4oz Roasted Barley
East Kent Goldings hops (pelleted, 4.7% AA):	1.4oz 60 minutes
						1.0oz 30 minutes
White Labs WLP028 - Edinburgh Ale
OG: 1.075
SG at racking: 1.024
SG at bottling: 1.014
ABV: ~7.2%

Note: Prepare as a standard extract/specialty-grain brew. 
When boiling wort, separate off a couple quarts of it into 
a separate pan and boil rapidly on high heat until well 
caramelized and darker, then add back in to main boil.

First Try Ale
(American Pale Ale - but hoppier)
-------------------------------
6.25# Briess Gold DME
1# 80L Crystal malt
6oz Victory malt
Columbus hops (whole, 14.6% AA):	1oz 60min
					.5oz 15min
					.5oz dry in secondary
Amarillo hops (whole, 9.8% AA):	 	.5oz 30min
					.5oz 15min
					1oz dry in secondary
Wyeast British Ale II yeast
OG: 1.051
SG at racking to secondary: 1.018
SG at bottling: 1.014
ABV: ~4.9%
BeerAlchemy gives me an expected IBU of 77 according to Tinseth, and expected color of 12.7SRM.