Last night, Chris brewed his first batch of beer. It was way more involved than I ever imagined. I helped him a bit and am super excited to see how it turns out in a few weeks. He made a Nut Brown Ale, which is one of my favorite types of beer. The house smelled awesome from soaking the grains + malt.

Beer brewing requires a lot of LARGE equipment, like this 8 gallon pot!

Earlier in the night I made some instant pudding from Trader Joes. There were minimal ingredients in this mix and it was honestly the best vanilla pudding I have ever had. I know there is no nutritional value, except from the added milk, but oh man was the 1/2c serving SO delicious. I got the vanilla + a chocolate box while I was at home. Check out your local TJ’s to see if they have it! I never saw it while in Charlotte.

I love the packaging.

Dinner was leftovers with a twist. I mixed last nights dinner and made patties, then sautéed them in a little olive oil. They didn’t stay together too well but were tasty anyway. I made a chipotle sauce to drizzle on top.

The copper tubing is part of the beer equipment. Chris made his own wort chiller. You use that towards the end of the process to cool the brew down. You place it in the pot of hot brew and run cold water through it to cool it to the proper temperature.

While brewing we enjoyed a brew. Murphy’s in a Guinness mug :)

I like Murphy’s a lot more than Guinness!

Huuuge beer buckets! The kitchen has been taken over!

Okay, recipe time!

Curry Honey Hummus [adapted from the Clean Food cookbook for Traditional Hummus]

1 garlic clove
2c. cooked chickpeas
3-4T olive oil
~1T to taste *Indian Curry [start slowly depending on type of curry]
1T honey
2-3T ground **sunflower seeds
few shakes of cayenne
1/2-1tsp ground cumin
2T fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/4-1/2tsp sea salt
Water

*There are many varieties of curry. There were 2 at Whole Foods. One was labeled Indian Curry and one just said Curry. The Indian Curry seemed to have some hints of cinnamon and took more than I would have thought to season in correctly. Start by adding 1tsp at a time until the desired flavor is reached.

**The original recipe called for tahini. I didn’t want to buy a jar for tahini for $11.99 so I just ground up sunflower seeds into a fine powder. When I looked at the ingredient list it read “sunflower seeds.” So, while the ground seeds weren’t the creamy consistency of tahini, I at least thought it would be good for the flavor. I think it worked pretty well! If you do have tahini use 2T of it.

Grind sunflower seeds and empty into a bowl.
Process garlic in a food processor and then scrape down sides.
Add chickpeas, oil, ground sunflower seeds, cumin, curry, honey, lemon juice, cayenne and salt. Process to combine and scrape down sides of bowl
Stream in water while processing until desired consistency is met. Remember when adding the water that the hummus will thicken refrigerated.
Taste to see if more seasonings are needed. If so, add and process again.
Refrigerate for at least 1hr before serving.

Sweet Potato + Black Bean Burritos with Cashew Cheese *vegan* [pg. 268 from Clean Food]

Cashew Cheese

1/2c unsalted cashews
1/4c nutritional yeast
1T canola oil

Burritos

3 sweet potatoes or yams
3T fresh squeezed lime juice
1 1/2c cooked black beans
1/2 red onion, diced
1 large tomato, diced [I used canned because tomatoes do not look that great in the winter]
8-10 soft corn tortillas
1 1/2c salsa [whatever you prefer]
1/2c corn, fresh or frozen
1/4c chopped scallions

Preheat oven to 400* and bake [cleaned] sweet potatoes until soft [about 45min]. I cut the potatoes into 1/4’s to help with the cooking. Remove and let cool.
While potatoes are cooking, grind cashews into a fine powder, in a food processor. Then, process with the nutritional yeast until just combined. Add oil and process until just moistened. If processed too long it will become dough-like.
If using frozen corn, thaw by boiling 1c. of water and pouring over frozen corn in a strainer.
Peel potatoes and mash with lime juice. I used a hand blender [immersion blender] which worked perfectly.
Fold in beans, onion, and tomato.
Spoon about 1/3c filling into each burrito, depending on size, roll and place seem side down in a baking dish.
Cover with salsa and broil for about 3min.
Add corn + cashew cheese and broil for about 2 more minutes. Watch closely so the “cheese” does not burn.
Top with scallions + serve.