Green Garlic Hummus with Green Garbanzo Beans

Freshly harvested mild green garlic and green garbanzo beans make a colorful and flavorful dip.

We are all hungry. My spouse is bike commuting these days and comes home starved. My kids get home from these last weeks of school and are starved. I think about making dinner and get peckish. Having an easy appetizer on hand, one that is protein-packed like hummus, is such a time- and appetite-saver for us all. I'm not worried about mindless snacking when I know what went into the dip.

Sometimes I'm buying the giant vats of Sabra from Costco to get our hummus fix. Sometimes I'm looking around at the contents of our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share box for hummus ideas. I've done quite a few for the blog--here are some of them:

In the spring we sometimes get fresh green garlic in the farm share. I like to play with it and try new things--I grow my own garlic but I've never harvested it as green garlic. Susan of Luna Cafe has a Fresh Primer on Green Garlic and Garlic Scapes--check it out here. [The garlic scapes, however, are something very worth harvesting--here's what a brand new baby scape looked like on my tallest plant the other day]. 

This hummus marks my first foray into green garbanzo beans. I saw some at my local spice shop and couldn't resist. I had no clue that spice shops existed before I moved to Dayton, and now I'm aware of 3--although I primarily shop at Spice Paradise where I got these beans. You can also make this with regular dry or canned chick peas. Whatever's easiest.

Green garbanzo beans and green garlic seemed like a good idea--so I made a hummus. We enjoy hummus with carrots, pita chips, pretzel chips, and even piled up in a plate with other summer eats for an easy dinner.

For other recipes using garlic, please see my Garlic Recipe Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. Want to know how to Use This Blog? Click here. For other vegetable appetizers, please see my Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks Pinterest board. To see what's up in the garden, feel free to check out my FB page. And, for more clickable collages of recipe suggestions like the hummus above, click here. 

Time Out for some Weeding

I've been doing a lot of weeding lately, and sitting and pulling out unwanted growth gives me time to think. Weeding one section of the brick patio gives me a sense of accomplishment, but when I turn around and gaze at the rest . . . . sigh.

I'm truly grateful that so much is bursting to life in the yard. I'm tickled that I appear to have volunteer cilantro and dill, and about a dozen volunteer pumpkin-ish squash plants. [Those squash starts are like moles popping up all over, but I'm not playing Whack A Mole unless they truly are in in a terrible spot. Like the section of brick patio I just weeded a few days before.] I'm creeped out as I drive past sterile brown fields that recently sprouted orderly rows of corn. Where is the green chaos of my garden?

Having a blog is a lot like having a garden in perpetual Spring. There is always some weeding to be done. Updating the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, adding notes in earlier posts directing readers to other recipes using similar farm share ingredients, and updating older posts with new search descriptions are all ways I weed the blog.

Spending time weeding means I'm not editing photos and writing up new posts, nor going around on social media sharing my newest recipes.

I'm taking a week off of posting new content to weed--both the garden and the blog. I can't promise I'll have everything ship shape, but it will be incrementally more user-friendly when I return, in time for our 10th CSA season to begin.

I'll be back with Green Garlic Hummus, a fun way to use both green garbanzo beans and fresh green garlic--in a week. In the meantime, if you see my on FB--please tell me to go weed!

Spiced Cottage Cheese Chip Dip

Cottage cheese blended with spices makes a simple dip that is great with potato chips or vegetable dippers. But really, you want it with potato chips. The ruffled kind are best.

On this blog I typically share how I feed my family the seasonal produce of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. Occasionally I'll share other, non-produce inspired recipes.

This is one of those times because every summer gathering needs a good potato chip dip.

This is an old family recipe that has been passed onto the 3rd generation. My daughter now makes it, and scribbles the amounts I call out in decimals--".66 mayonnaise", anyone? It seems awfully silly for a family recipe of what amounts to a diet food [used as a way to get more potato chips into my mouth] but no matter.

Growing up my mom didn't buy those tubs of sour cream-based dips for parties. She'd just make up this dip instead. When my brother comes home from overseas, in addition to fried eggs, he wants a bag of chips, a container of cottage cheese, and seasoned salt--the bachelor version. I thought everyone ate cottage cheese as a chip dip, and had no clue cottage cheese was thought of as a diet food until recently.

We are particular about our cottage cheese and prefer a dried style and smaller curd than most nationwide brands. Each time we move I have to find a new cottage cheese source, and here in Ohio it's Michigan brand cottage cheese.  Since I'm still not really sure how to respond when someone yells O-H!, and since my spouse is from Michigan, there is no foolish sports-related reason not to live in Ohio and enjoy Michigan brand cottage cheese. No sponsorship implied--sharing a fine example of 'good' cottage cheese for this dip. Back on the east coast it was Nordica brand. I never found a good brand in Hawaii. I ate sushi and malasadas instead.

For grins and giggles, even though there's not a vegetable in it or a Chip Dip Category on it, check out the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. If you're still got time to kill while avoiding something more pressing, head over to Pinterest and follow my Awesome Vegetable Apps and Snacks. Still want to poke around? Learn how to Use This Blog here.