No Loss Situation

It’s a no loss situation; this means absence of any competing or non-competing losers. It’s like tee ball with no score and where every kid gets pizza, a snow cone, and the same “League Champs” trophy.

This is different from the clichéd "win-win" situation. If there are winners then there is at least 1 loser.

No loss is far better than win-win. Plus it's cliché worthy.

My Best Hummus

1 can (15 oz) garbanzo bean (chick peas) drained*

1/8 cup tahina paste

1/8 cup extra virgin cold pressed olive oil

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/4 tsp paprika

1/4 tsp cumin

half a fresh lemon

some white pepper

crushed red pepper (garnish)

I usually make a double batch.

Instructions. Drain the beans, conserving the "juice." Add the beans, tahina, olive oil, salt, paprika, cumin into your blender. Squeeze the juice out of the lemon. Dash some white pepper in on top. Grab a wooden spoon or silicon (or rubber) scraper. Turn on the blender at it's slowest setting. Gentle push from the edges into the center just staying on top of the ingredients. Everything will blend. If it's too chunky add either (a) more olive oil (my preference), or (b) some of the "juice" you conserved.

I blend mine in my Kitchen Aid blender until I get to second highest setting and leave it on until the humus is light and fluffy; almost whipped. Everyone loves. Lately I've been adding some fresh garlic. Also, a teaspoon of truffle oil instead of garlic would be a gourmet touch.

Keep it simple. Serve directly on a plate in a big dollup drizze with a touch of olive oil and garnish with crushed red pepper. I like to use barbari bread from my local mediterranean market and it can also be found at Sam's. Pita bread is fine. Try your favorite flat bread. I cut mine in 3 inch square, warm in my counter-top toaster then cut into triangles.

Enjoy!

Strawberry Pineapple Smoothie

Here's a great lactose free shake I make for my wife. I say it's lactose free because it has no milk, but it does have yogurt. I use Activia. My wife has found that the Activia does not cause the same problems other milk products do.

Put the following items into your blender in this order:
1 cup of frozen strawberries
3/4 cup of frozen pineapple chunks
1/2 cup of plain or vanilla Activia yogurt
1/2 cup of rice milk
1 scoop of egg protein (vanilla or unflavored) we use Jay Robb's
some honey to taste

Wait... don't leave. When you blend, start at stir and move to liquify. Don't start on high. Pro smoothie machines do just that; go from slow to fast. It makes less mess, wastes less, and blends smoother AND faster with less air.

Enjoy.

Usefulness

Handy as a pocket on a shirt.

Those Poor Hens

Below is a picture of the latest marketing trend for eggs: honesty in
what the hens a fed. However, I have to say I'm a bit appalled. Look
at what they claim to be feeding them!

Gnocchi with Talapia in White Wine, Mushroom, and Roasted Red Bell Pepper

OK, here's a quick narrative of how to make this dish. There is no recipe, just some guidelines.
I sauteed the fresh frozen talapia for 4 minutes a side on medium-ish in EVOO with kosher, cracked, and squeeze of lemon; then set it aside.
Into my already boiling water, I dumped premade gnocchi. After 5 minutes, I drained and set it aside after a cooling rinse.
Then I sauteed mushrooms in olive oil, white wine, cracked, and kosher. After the mushrooms were cooked, I sliced and added in 1 red bell that was from the olive bar at Tom Thumb - roasted and in olive oil.
Next, I added a little more kosher, cracked, fresh Italian parsley, and diced romas, tossed quickly and removed from heat.
Following that, I took out a big as pan, put it on medium, threw in the gnocchi and drizzled with EVOO and sauteed those suckers until they were warm again and not as doughy, threw on the mushroom sauce, then diced the fish and added it in... toss toss toss.
To plate, I garnished with crumbled feta, Parmesan, and some fresh Italian parsley and cracked for looks.
This is a totally made up dish.
After scarfing it down we concluded that I should have added toasted pine nuts and a lemon wheel into the mix.
I think some crushed red pepper in the sauce after the mushrooms would have been spot on!
Enjoy!

Stop Making Mud and Clear Up Your URI

Do you use a custom domain with Blogger like I do? Well I find that the help at Blogger is pretty good. There's info on how to setup the DNS etc. And, if you're like me and wrap your domain with Gmail and Google Calendar then you have email.yourdomain.com resolving for email and cal.yourdomain.com resolving for the Calendar.
However, you may have noticed that while www.yourdomain.com brings up your blog, yourdomain.com (without the "www") does not. What to do? Well if you are on Linux/Apache and hosted somewhere, time to make a quick and dirty little .htaccess file.
Make a text file called htaccess.txt. Put the following code in there:
#chrisbeckworth.com rocks visit often
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^yourdomain.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [r=301,nc]
Replace "yourdomain.com" with domain name and tld. Save the file. FTP to your domains directory and uploaded the file. Rename the file from htaccess.txt to .htaccess.
Enjoy.