This entry is dedicated to a couple items that I enjoy keeping around the house and snacking on throughout the week. Pico de gallo has been my go to ever since one of my old roommates showed me how to prepare it. It’s simple and not just for snacking. Just this morning I put it in my breakfast pita that consisted of scrambled eggs, spinach, mushroom, and cauliflower hummus. As for hummus, I started really enjoying it while working at Hummus Place in NY. Eventually I want to replicate the hummus with mushroom dish. It’s to.die.for! But then again, I love mushrooms.
For this entry, I’m going to do a cauliflower hummus that came to me by way of TaskRabbit. I started tasking about a year ago and so far it’s served me well. One of the tasks I do is Cooking&Baking and it’s helped guide me in what I want and don’t want to do in terms of cooking. Anyway, on this one particular cooking task I was hired for last week one of the recipes was for a cauliflower hummus that was exceptionally good and so I added it to my recently prepared “snacks to keep handy” list. Ever since I cut dairy out, hummus has been my replacement for bagels and it’s nice to keep handy. So let’s get started!
I had a task in the evening and a couple of hours to spare after going to Sprouts. Sprouts isn’t usually my go to store, but they recently opened up close enough to my place so I went there instead. Berkeley Bowl is my first choice, but I didn’t have the time to head there and prepare the snacks before heading out to my task. And there was no way that I would want to make these after the task. Anyway, Sprouts is ok. I like that they have a bulk section so that was nice. I’ll shop there for anything that I’ll just be eating myself, but Berkeley Bowl will be my number one for anything else. Farmers Markets are best, but that’ll be another time.
Here are the ingredients with a few missing subjects: lemon for the hummus and onion for the pico.
Oh, you see shrimp?! Oh yah, while I was in Sprouts, I decided that since I’m making pico de gallo I might as well get some shrimp and make ceviche too! So I get home, preheat the oven, cut up the cauliflower, got that in the oven, then started on the shrimp. I like a good size so I cut them in about 1/2″ pieces squeezed lime juice to cover, and put in fridge for about 45 min. Some people blanch the shrimp first. The choice is yours.
After came the pico de gallo. I quartered the tomatoes taking out and reserving the guts for a tomato sauce that I’ll make later, diced the jalapeno and onion. I like to cut them up finely as I’ve found it sits better with those that don’t want to get a chunk of jalapeno and those that don’t really like onion.
Chopped up the cilantro, squeezed some lime juice, and added salt. After mixing everything together, make sure you taste it by itself and also with a chip. If you’d like a certain flavor to stand out more (ie more cilantro) add more to the mix. Once it’s to your liking, cover up and stick it in the fridge for a bit. It tastes better after the flavors all meld together.
The cauliflower finished before I was done with the pico so I just took that out of the oven and let it rest on the stove.
I could have cut them smaller and let them brown a little longer, but it still worked out pretty well.
Once I put the pico in the fridge, I got out the food processor (a vitamix is preferable) and started on the hummus. I didn’t find any tahini at the market so I made some myself and used that. Using a food processor is definitely not ideal for tahini & hummus, but after pureeing for quite some time, it all worked out.
When the hummus was done, I took the shrimp out of the lime juice, reserving & freezing the juice for a recipe later this week which I’ll post on instagram, then spooning some of the pico de gallo in with the shrimp. Use as much or as little of the pico as you like.
Here’s my basic recipe for pico de gallo:
Makes approx. 3 cups.
5 tomatoes (I used roma’s for this one, but enjoy the flavor of the vine tomatoes as well)
1/2 med onion, diced (use red or white onion, up to you)
1 cup cilantro, chopped
1 small jalapeno, minced (or dice as big as you’d like. Add more for spicier pico)
1 lime, juiced (or more if you like more citrus. I used 1.5 limes for mine, but I’m a citrus nut)
salt to taste
I’ll be creating other dishes from the pico and hummus along with the reserved juices throughout the week and posting them on instagram. Feel free to follow me on there as well to see what I do with the items from my blog entries.
Cooking with Jo! 