Chickpea Onion Dip

The world is a mess, and I just need to....rule it.

We live in tumultuous times. There's violence, strife, and political division, both on a global scale, and also widespread domestically. And that's just about Lady Gaga. Lots of people are scared and angry, and most of them don't seem to even know what they're angry about. But the superbowl's coming up soon! We can all get excited about that, probably! We can all get together and cheer while watching the exciting match between the....Patriots and Falcons. Ok, so the superbowl will be awful. But at least it gives us an excuse to dip food into other food, creating double-food, capable of insane levels of deliciousness. And, when you get down to it, isn't that what America is really all about? The answer is no.

Ingredients:

2  16-oz Cans of Chickpeas (Chickpeas are also known as garbanzos, because life is hard and hates you personally)

1  Standard Bunch of Green Onions (Green Onions, also called scallions, are social creatures that travel from supermarket to supermarket in units known as "bunches." They have developed a symbiotic relationship with another supermarket-dwelling creature known as the "tiny blue rubberband that you immediately lose, but later breaks your vacuum cleaner")

3 TBSP Olive Oil

One large human's pinch of Salt

One smallish and/or puny human's pinch of Black Pepper

This recipe, much like one of my bookshelves and my couch, hails from the proud tradition of shameless stealing things from my mother. I can only assume that with time I'll eventually grow bolder and steal more substantial things, like her car or social security number. Time will tell. The point is, crack open your cans of chickpeas, drain out the weird juice and gunk, and then toss them into a standard-issue mashing bowl. Now it's time to painstakingly mash the chickpeas, pretty much one at a time, with a fork. If you're a fool. Like I apparently was for an embarrassingly long amount of time. Make your life easier and use a potato-masher, which is apparently useful for something other than jamming drawers.

Guaranteed to make your day 50% more delicious. And
13% more full of mashing things. 

Rinse off your green onions, and then choppity chop them into little bits. Mix them, along with the rest of your ingredients, into your mashed chickpeas. And that's it! Well, mostly. Stick it in the fridge for a couple of hours so that the flavors get to know one another. And then that's totally it. For sure this time. Dip anything you like in there, and it'll be delicious. Vegetables, bread, crackers, you name it. Bugs. Probably not bugs. Don't dip gross things and you won't get gross results. Enjoy, and tune in next week for more superbowl food! Because, the world may suck...the game may suck...but at least we can eat good food, drink, and be merry while we endure it! (Next week's recipe may just be on how to find and consume beer. We'll see!)

Tired Returns

Oh, and waterfalls. There were also waterfalls.

So it's 2017! That apparently happened. And with it came the grim realization that I lied to all of you. I said that I was going to keep updating this blog while I was on vacation. I even implied that I might update it more than usual with random trip nonsense. This was not the case. And sure, I didn't intend to lie to you all. I had no way of knowing that the old unsupported blogger app would finally crap out and keep me from updating from my phone. But that doesn't really matter. What actually counts is that I went to Scotland and played around with frickin' Owls. Seriously...even if all the technology worked all of the time, I would not have been focused on updating whilst on this vacation. I was focused on owls. And castles. And whiskey. And....I dunno...natural splendor? But I'm back! And it turns out that when you get back from a day of about 14 hours of plane travel, you're hungry. And because you've been gone for two weeks, you pretty much only what's in your freezer to work with. Fortunately, my freezer was well stocked....with cheese. And not much else. But cheese, plus tomato/herb crusted mini-pitas that I bought from a supermarket, equals delicious mini pita pizzas! Which will totally soothe your soul after a long day of travel, and distract you for about 45 seconds from the fact that owls and castles are behind you, and you have only your whiskey to remember them by. And the pictures. Mostly the whiskey.

Ingredients:

Mini Tomato/Herb Pitas (Yes, this is kind of weirdly specific. But it's what they had at the grocery store. Get regular mini-pita for all I care and smear some tomato sauce on it. Actually, that sounds better. Do that instead.)
Cheese
Vegetable Oil

Nothing like melted cheese to help you forget the horror
 that is WOW airlines. 

That's right. 2 ingredients. Because one thing you don't want to do when you've been on a plane for 16 hours that day is have to mess around prepping different ingredients, hungry and tired and just wishing you were either back in Scotland or dead, whichever you can get to faster. So simplicity is key here. Take your oil and coat the bottom of a cast iron skillet. Throw down your pitas until you get a solid layer (Yes, you've just come off of 20 hours of plane rides, so you're probably not going to have the energy to literally "throw" anything anywhere. Maybe "listlessly prod.") Cover the top with cheese. How much cheese? If you need to ask that question, you may not be deserving of cheese. It's delicious and you're tired. Go nuts. I had about 5.5 ounces on my batch, but that's just because my weary hands gave out from all of the sprinkling. Toss that sucker in a 450 degree oven for about 10 minutes, and then take it out and enjoy! There's nothing like cheesy deliciousness to welcome you back to your dreary life after crazy travel and adventure.