Harp Food: Raw cookies and hummus, but not together

On a Vegan Mofo day like today when the front door never opens (translation = no visiting students), you would think I would be more about cooking big lovely meals in the kitchen.  Instead, however, I’m catching up on paying bills, updating gig calendars, and following up on neglected correspondence, which means I get frustrated and tend to take a lot of breaks to snack.  Or graze.  Or forget what I have eaten up to the point when I’m looking again to see if something magically appeared in the kitchen while I was away for five minutes.

One of my favorite snacks is Ani Phyo‘s raw Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. They are very simple and amazingly good.

1 cup raw oats
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup pitted medjool dates

Process everything together in the food processor.  At first it looks like the ingredients are spinning pointlessly, but suddenly after a bit it all comes together into a ball and the machine almost leaps off the counter.  When you save it from itself and shut the processor off, your dough looks like this:

In looking up this recipe, I am finding that some mix in by hand the raisins so they stay whole.  But when processed like they are above, the dough is sticky, and you pinch pieces from it and roll /press them into a discs.  I like making small cookies so I feel like I have a stash of many, and store them in the refrigerator so they firm up a little.

I also tend to think of bread as a snack, which could be detrimental in a way.  Today’s bread actually turned out wonderful, using this recipe, but veganized, sans rosemary, rolled oats instead of meal, plus a small pile of flaxseed meal — I knew this recipe would work because I know this cook VERY VERY WELL.

And then I made hummus.  I have the proportions pretty much where I want them finally, but exact measurements? Fill the food processor halfway with garbanzo beans, a little water or cooking liquid from the beans, sprinkle that surface area with salt, add the juice of one small lemon, add one medium-sized clove of garlic, and one large soup spoon of tahini.  Blend.  This batch turned out perfect — light and fluffy and smooth.

What I love about this shot is that there is no trace of only a few hours before having shook the almond milk vigorously before adding it to the bread recipe and splattering it all up and down the kitchen cabinets.