July 4, 2009, Independence Day for Ron

This is the day I have been waiting for, the day I set up my web page. For those who follow my posts and notes in Facebook, this is an extension and expansion of those. It will also include material I have written and stored in my computer as I have time to post it.


A personal note:

For the past couple weeks I have been trying foods that I have never eaten before in my life.Such was the case with hummus. Being a gardener all my life, I always thought humus was something you dug out of the compost pile to enrich the soil (I misread the label). The kind sold in the deli is Greek food and I have a special interest in Greek, so I bought some. The Garbanzo bean paste has a bland flavor so there are several varieties with chopped or crushed herbs or vegetables added for flavor.

This obviously is not a main dish or even a side dish. Figuring out how to use it was open to experimentation since I am neither a Greek cook nor a regular connoisseur of Greek food and I have no Greek cookbook. The bean flavor seemed to lend itself to Mexican food and I ceased thinking Greek.

Mixed with hot spicy Guacamole that I purchased the same day helped tone down the heat. There were hot dogs in the freezer but no hot dog buns. There were also 6 inch tortillas, but no burrito filling. Now I am not sure if the Mexican hot dog wrap had ever been used before, but with some refried beans and the guacamole/hummus paste smeared generously on the tortilla, the hot dogs were a success in my opinion. Later I tried some with tuna fish on a sandwich and that was also good.

One of these days I will have to find out how hummus is supposed to be used. My second purchase of hummus was also used for experimentation. For my holiday snacking I made a chip dip of hummus, sour cream and cream cheese. That was delicious.

My second adventure into new foods was Taboule Salad. The first bite said this was a big mistake. I thought of all the money I could have saved by raking up the grass clippings in the yard. A little oil and vinegar and there wouldn't be a lot of difference. But since I bought it I had to use it and I had to think of ways to tone down all that wild chopped parsley flavor. Does anyone really eat this as a salad?

With chip dip on my mind from the hummus I decided to try the sour cream and cream cheese with taboule. It didn't take much to overpower the sour cream/cream cheese duo, so before I knew it I had quite a bit of dip and hardly put a dent in the taboule. It was hardly anything to write home about, but it was good on crackers spread first with the hummus dip, piled with taboule dip and topped with sliced jalapeno olives. Turning Mediterranean food into Mexican food does improve it for my palate.

The rest of the taboule parsley topped off the next four or five lettuce salads. Drenched in ranch dressing and topped with cucumbers and tomatoes on a bed of lettuce got rid of the last of it spoonful by spoonful. If parsley is good for digestion, mine must be back in shape by now!