Roasted Eggplant with Tahini Sauce

Delicious and easy eggplant recipe, with a delicious sauce involving ingredients you probably already have on hand! It's amazing how thick the tahini makes the sauce, I had to add more water to mine for consistency sake. I packed leftovers for lunch today with sauce on it. Eggplant lost its nice dry baked texture, and the sauce soaked into the eggplant slices but still delicious : )

Also: Google? HOW do you not have tahini in your dictionary? Seriously? How many food blog do you host??

Roasted Eggplant with Tahini Sauce
from LaaLoosh
1 serving (or 2 as a side)

Ingredients:
1 medium eggplant, sliced 1/2" thick
1 Tbs tahini
1 Tbs water
1 clove garlic, minced
2 pinches smoked paprika
1 Tbs lemon juice
salt and pepper
olive oil, to brush
parsley, to garnish

Instructions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 400F and line a baking sheet with a silicon mat.
2. Place eggplant slices evenly on baking sheet and brush with oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Bake for 20-30 mins, flipping half way through.
3. Meanwhile, whisk together tahini, water, garlic, paprika. Add more water if needed for consistency.
4. Plate eggplant, drizzle tahini sauce over, and garnish with parsley.

Chipotle Sweet Potato Hummus

I wanted a healthy (vegetarian) alternative for a Super Bowl party, and I found this little gem. It's a non-chickpea based hummus, using sweet potato instead. Extremely quick to make (I didn't even peel the sweet potatoes, just scrubbed) and it has a great thick texture. I didn't add much olive oil, just a little for taste.

Serve with cut vegetables, pita triangles, or use as a sandwich spread.

Chipotle Sweet Potato Hummus
from The Fitchen

Ingredients:
2 medium sweet potatoes, cubed small
1/2 cup tahini
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tsp ground chipotle pepper
1 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp salt
olive oil as needed for consistency

Instructions:
1. Steam the sweet potatoes until fork-tender (15-20 mins)
2. Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse in 5 second bursts until desired consistency is reached, drizzling in olive oil as needed.
3. Garnish with olive oil drizzled on top and a couple dashes of ground chipotle pepper.

Seedy Tahini Cole Slaw

Summer produce is one of my favorite things. Even better, my company brings in a local, organic farmer's market once a month during the summer months so I don't even have to go out to get nice, fresh produce! They always have a dish created by our cafeteria chef to highlight the produce available at each market with a recipe card you can take. This time it happened to be a cole slaw with vinegar and melon. It was decent, but I thought I could come up with something better. Since they had fresh cabbage for only 1$ a head, I got one and did some experimenting. I really like what I came up with, a combination of this and this recipe plus a couple of my own additions. You can really add whatever you want to this recipe, including thing like chopped kale or watercress or cashews or pineapple. There's a lot of directions cole slaw can go, but this is a nice, seedy, protein-filled base to start off with. It can be eaten straight, as a meal or a side dish, or dumped on top of salad or even pasta. This recipe makes quite a bit, so be prepared to share and experiment with the left-overs.

Seedy Tahini Cole Slaw
adapted from Lunch Box Bunch

Ingredients:
1 small head of cabbage
3-4 carrots, grated or minced
1 cucumber, diced small or julieened
1 cup (8 oz) silken tofu
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup tahini
2 Tbs agave
1 Tbs maple syrup
1.5 Tbs soy sauce (or tamari)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/3 cup oil (I used olive)
1/4 cup poppy seeds
1/4 cup sesame seeds, toasted
1/4 cup pepitas, roasted
several generous dashes cayenne
salt and pepper (to taste)

Instructions:
1. Remove cabbage stem, thinly slice, and then chop into smaller pieces. Place in a large mixing bowl
2. Add vinegar, tahini, agave, maple syrup, soy sauce, garlic powder, and cayenne to a blender, and blend on low until creamy. Slowly drizzle in oil with blender on low. Add salt and pepper as needed.
3. Combine all ingredients (including seeds) and stir well to combine.
4. Serve fresh or allow to sit overnight and marinate.

Kale and Quinoa Salad with Tahini Dressing

I've been getting tons of spam-comments on my blog lately from what look like comment-spam bots from India. I've taken it as a sign calling me to get back into cooking and blogging, since I've really fallen out of doing that as of late. But I'm making it a goal as of now to at least cook one new blog-worth thing a week and post about it.

I've been getting these wonderful eggs from a co-worker, who raises chickens free-range and on vegetarian feed. They're seriously the best egg's I've ever eaten, and amazingly good and flavorful when hard-boiled without even needing salt sprinkled on top. The yolks are deep orange-yellow, and you can really taste the nutrients in them. They're actually so nutrient-rich, when I made a 2.5 egg omelettes the other day, pan-fried in oil, it smelled and tasted like what I remember dark-meat fried chicken to be like, and it was too much for me! I got sick off them. I couldn't believe that, but I guess I need to skip out on the pan-frying and water cook or bake these nutrient-rich babies. I don't think I'll ever be able to buy store-bought eggs again after this, though.

This simple light-but-hearty kale salad is perfect for dinners where you want a lot of flavor with little effort. It's quite thick with the tahini dressing, but doesn't weight you down.

Kale and Quinoa Salad with Tahini Dressing
adapted from Foodness
serves 2

Ingredients:
2 farm-fresh eggs

3/4 cup quinoa, rinsed
1.5 cups water
1 small bunch kale, stems removed and thinly-sliced
1/4 cup craisins
1 Tbs. sesame seeds, toasted
 1/4 cup tahini
2 Tbs. olive oil
3 Tbs. lemon juice
1 tsp. lemon zest
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tbs. honey
salt (to taste)

Instructions:
1. Combine quinoa and water in a medium sauce pan over high heat. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to low. Cook for ~12 minutes until water is absorbed. Let stand for 5 minutes, then fluff with a fork and let sit lidless while quinoa cools.
2. Whisk together tahini, olive oil, lemon juice, zest, garlic, sugar, and salt in a large bowl.
3. Add kale and cooled quinoa to bowl and toss until well-combined. Add craisins and half of the sesame seeds and toss again to combine. Sprinkle with remaining sesame seeds and serve.

Moroccan Spiced Carrot Hummus

Winter has been raging on here in the Midwest. This shot was taken on top of 2 or so feet of snow. x.x To fight the snow and the cold that kept me home on this particular day, I soaked some chickpeas and whipped together this hummus during lunch time. Easy, quick, and delicious! And the spices will take you to a place far from this snowy tundra : )

I sautéed my carrots instead of boiling them and this made them more so chunks. I tend to prefer my hummus more chunky anyway, but I included directions from the original recipe for the smoother hummus lovers.

Moroccan Spiced Carrot Hummus
from Healthy. Delicious.

Ingredients:
1.5 cups carrots, peeled and cut into coins
1.5 cups (1- 16 oz. can) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup tahini
1 lemon, juiced
4 cloves garlic, minced
6 Tbs. cold water
1 Tbs. olive oil, plus more for serving
1 Tbs. Ras El Hanout (I used this recipe)

Instructions:
1. Add carrots to a small sauce pan and cover with water. Boil about 10 minutes, until very soft. Drain and set aside.
2. Pour rinsed chickpeas onto a kitchen towel and cover with another towel. Rub together to loosen skins on the chick peas. Pour chickpeas into a bowl and cover with water. Remove the skins that float to the top, stir the chick peas, and remove the additional skins that float to the top. Drain chickpeas.
3. Pour drained chickpeas into a food processor, add carrots, and process together until they form a paste. While running, add tahini, lemon juice, and garlic. Continue to process until combined.
4. Continue running and add water and process for 5 minutes, or until desired consistency has been reached. Add olive oil and ras el hanout and pulse to combine. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.
5. Server with drizzled olive oil.

Butternut Squash and Tahini Dip

I've become rather addicted to tahini, ever since my excursion into middle eastern food with the falafel expedition (lightly explained in my falafel post). This dip is great, and my friend and I ate the whole thing up in just a few days x.x Serve with traditional pita bread or on crackers. Don't over process like I did! I've gotten to used to making pumpkin purée which takes a good 5 minutes to process and after that it STILL isn't completely smooth, but this processes super quickly.

Butternut Squash and Tahini Dip
from Playin with my Food

Ingredients:
2.5 lbs. butternut squash, peeled and diced (7 cups)
3 Tbs. olive oil
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
5 Tbs. tahini
6 oz. Greek yogurt
2 small cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp. sesame seeds
1.5 tsp. maple syrup (or date syrup)
salt
Optional: 2 tsp. cilantro, chopped (to garnish)

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Toss squash with olive oil on a roasting pan and sprinkle with cinnamon and salt. Cover the pan with foil and roast for 40 mins (or until soft)
3. Set squash aside and let cool.
4. Transfer cooled squash to a food processor, add tahini, yogurt, and garlic. Pules until a coarse paste is formed. Salt to taste.
5. Spread onto a flat plate in a wavy pattern, sprinkle with sesame seeds, drizzle over syrup, and garnish with cilantro (if using).

Falafel with Tahini Sauce

The Students for Middle Eastern Peace club on campus does a falafel fund-raiser every year, and one of my friends who dines with me mostly every night is the president. As it's an extremely small club (think 6 people), my food processor, my senioritis, and my love of cooking made me the perfect candidate to help in this endeavour. I made a x8 batch of this, over 360 falafels. I'm proud to say that most all of them got sold, but those that didn't were frozen. This is such an easy go-to meal that I might just start keeping a batch frozen, along with a bag of pitas and a recipe of the tahini sauce that goes with it (recipe below).

Falafel

by Tyler Florence

Ingredients:
2 cans of chickpeas
1 tsp. baking powder
1 small onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbs. cumin seeds (or powder)
1 Tbs. coriander powder
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 Tbs. parsley, chopped
1 Tbs. cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup corn starch
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
1. Pour refined peanut oil into a deep-fryer and turn on.
2. Rinse the chickpeas in a colander until no longer foamy, then drain. Add to the food processor and process until coarsely ground.
3. Add all other ingredients (minus salt and pepper) and process until combined. Add salt and pepper to taste.
4. Form into 1.5" balls. If they are falling apart, add more cornstarch. If they are too dry, add more water.
5. Slip a few balls at a time into the deep fryer (making sure they don't stick to the bottom), and cook until golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and set on a plate lined with paper towels.

Tahini Sauce
Ingredients:
1/2 cup tahini
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 lemon, juiced
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and paprika to taste

Instructions:
1. Combine tahini, yogurt, lemon juice, and garlic. Add salt and paprika to taste.

Tahini Broccoli Salad with Almonds

Flavorful, fast, and delicious side. And using the last of the farmer's market broccoli! Amazing they still had some so late in the season.

Tahini Broccoli Salad with Almonds
from Anja's Food 4 Thought
serves 3 - 4

Ingredients:
1/4 cup almonds, whole and raw
1 lb. broccoli, cut into florets and thin stems
1/4 cup tahini
2 Tbs. olive oil
1/2 tsp. salt
1 clove garlic, minced
hot water (as desired)
2 Tbs. sesame seeds (to garnish)

Instructions:
1. Heat a dry skillet over medium-low heat, and toast almonds until fragrant (5 minutes), stirring frequently to avoid burning. Let cool, then chop.
2. Steam broccoli florets for a few minutes until just tender, then blanch. Set aside.
3. Whisk together tahini, olive oil, salt, and garlic. Add hot water to achieve desired consistency.
4. Combine broccoli and tahini sauce. Sprinkle with chopped almonds and sesame seeds. Serve room temperature or cold.