Cinnamon Raisin Hummus with Peanut Butter

Sunday I made more hummus because I am totally on a hummus kick thanks entirely to the hummus stand at the farmers’ market. When I tried the “hummus guy’s” cinnamon raisin hummus I immediately thought it would be better with peanut butter in place of the tahini. When Dan tried it and said the same thing I knew it was a sign.

Like always cook the chickpeas until they are very soft, in other words too soft to be used whole. While the beans are still hot drain them and place them in the food processor and add a little of the bean cooking liquid and process until they are completely pulverized and smooth. Add additional bean cooking liquid until you like the texture (thickness) of the hummus. Now add some homemade reduced-fat peanut butter, cinnamon and a touch of stevia to make it lightly sweet. Once you like the hummus flavor and texture stir in some golden raisins and refrigerate. Remember the hummus will get thicker as it chills so it should be a little softer than you like when it goes into the refrigerator.

Errands and Dinner Out:

Dan decided we would run errands last night after he got home from work. I had a few things to return to the library and other things waiting for me that I had reserved on-line so we headed north to Baltimore County.

Since we knew that we didn’t have time to get back to the restaurant and see the gang we decided to have dinner at Jesse Wong’s in Hunt Valley and then stop at Wegman’s.

We started with the sweet and sour cabbage with sweet red peppers, dried hot peppers, and sesame seeds. This is a very nice salad. I think it is cooked briefly and then cooled. I will try to make something similar soon at home so that I can share it with you in more detail.

Next Dan wanted vegetable dumplings so we ordered those.

Our entrée was faux “shrimp” (made with white yam) and King Oyster mushrooms in a brown sauce. The shrimp are so real in both taste and texture that it is a bit creepy.

While we were there we order Hunan “faux” duck for Dan’s lunch tomorrow.   Dan loves this dish in case you hadn't noticed.  ;-)

After dinner we went to Wegman’s which is also in the same shopping center in Hunt Valley. I needed a variety of beans (garbanzo, great northern, black, and red lentil). Additionally I was also running low on golden raisins, organic cat nip and wanted some chopped peanuts for garnish. A few packages of bean thread noodles jumped into my cart as well. Don’t they do that with you? LOL

Since I am always raving about the great selection at Wegman’s and I was in the ethnic food area I took a few pictures of the variety to give you an idea of the fabulous selection. Please note these weren’t things I bought (thought the Muesli was tempting) just a random selection of items that I don’t typically see in other grocery stores.

This is just a tiny sample of the variety of products that you can find at Wegman’s. It really is a great store. If you have one near you and haven’t checked it out please do. I think you will be glad that you did.

How to Identify Guy Humor…I think:

We got to the restaurant late, after 8:30 and knew that we should order quickly so that we weren’t keeping the kitchen busy when they would rather be cleaning up and going home. Since we often forget to order brown rice and that means the servers ends up going back to the kitchen Dan mentioned it to the server right away in case we didn’t remember once we had decided on our entrée.

There was another couple, about our age, at the table next to us. After we ordered our salad and dumplings and said we would decide on our entrée in a few minutes the man next to us piped up and said “Don’t forget my friend’s brown rice.” Huh? Do I know you I thought? I looked again and realized I had no idea who this guy was. However since his comment annoyed me I figured it must have been guy humor. I asked Dan after we left and he said, yes that was guy humor. Now I know how to identify it. If something comes out a guy’s mouth that irritates me it must be guy humor. Got it. ;-) Men! *rolls eyes*

Happy thoughts:

• As Monday’s go it was a very good day. I wasn’t very productive but I enjoyed myself and we all need those days sometimes. Dan and I had a nice dinner out though it was much more rushed than we typically prefer. We had tasty Chinese food and talked all through dinner. Heck we talked all through our errands. It was a nice evening.

• Massimo continues to improve. He was popping around here earlier today and he even went for a ride on my shoulders around lunch time.

• The fur children are finally adjusting to being back on crunchy cat food (kibble as we call it). My youngest (Binky) may just be growing up …finally. LOL, too bad he had to be 10 years old before he started to mature.

• We got a little rain last night was we desperately needed because the ground is extremely dry. The storm put on a beautiful light show before the rain started falling. Since we did get caught in the rain going between the car and the restaurant it was a good day to be wearing jeans and T-shirt last night.

• Speaking of growing up Binky may not be the only one who can say that. I went out last night in jeans, my gray Hopkins Lacrosse T-shirt, hair in a pony tail and no makeup (yikes!). Who knows maybe I am growing up too. Nah! LOL

• Yesterday our temperatures were again over 100 and that made it a day to be very grateful for air conditioning and I was.

Signing out:

The day if flying by and I have a lot of things to do before Dan gets home from work. I hope your Tuesday is going well. Talk to you again soon. :-)