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Chickpeas are full of dietary fiber, folate, and iron, but it’s hard to eat them when the hummus from the deli section presents a bland flavor palette. I prefer to make my own.

Ingredients

(ingredients)* 1 lb chickpeas or garbanzo beans, soaked overnight

• 2 T parsley, dried
• 1 T salt
• 1 T Hungarian paprika
• 1 head “roasted garlic”:http://www.bajada.net/2005/11/04/roasted_garlic
• (amount) {1/2} C extra virgin olive oil
• (amount) { } % %(ingredient)juice of eight lemons

Procedure

(procedure)# Drain and rinse the chickpeas. In a pot, cover soaked beans with 2” water and bring to a simmer. Hold at a simmer for 2 {1/2}-3 hours, or until beans are soft and fully cooked; add water as needed to ensure that they remain submerged. Remove from heat and drain chickpeas.

1. In a Ziplock bag with a rolling pin, crush chickpeas to a paste. It is not necessary to completely process them down; in fact, it is nearly impossible to remove all of the lumps without a food processor.
2. Mix chickpea paste with remaining seasonings.

Serving suggestions

Serve with toasted pita bread points or crudit{e/}.

Rebecca sings:
Ring around the rosy
A pocket full of toesies
Ashes, ashes,
We all fly down.

She has been singing this all afternoon… wrong.

Matthew turns on a dance mix of Dragostea Din Tei on his laptop. I start singing along because Jesus, it is the Numa Numa song! Of course I am singing along!

“Are you singing that in Hungarian?

“It’s Romanian."

“You’re fired.”

This makes a fast lunch, but can be dressed up for company by dicing the cucumber and serving with pita bread as a dip. I always have a container of plain yogurt and a head of roasted garlic on hand , but a scant amount of sour cream and garlic powder can be substituted in a pinch.

Ingredients

(ingredients)* 2 T extra virgin olive oil

• (amount) 1-2 clove(s) “roasted garlic”:http://www.bajada.net/2005/11/04/roasted_garlic
• (amount) 1 ts salt
• (amount) {1/2}-1 C plain yogurt
• (amount) { } % %(ingredient)juice of one lemon
• (amount) {1/2} ts dried mint
• (amount) {1/2} ts dried dill
• (amount) 1 cucumber

Procedure

(procedure)# In a large bowl, crush together olive oil, garlic, and salt with the back of a fork to form a paste. Gradually mix in yogurt, then add lemon juice, mint, and dill. Mix thoroughly and set aside to allow dried herbs to rehydrate.

1. While the dressing sets, peel and optionally seed a cucumber. Quarter, then slice to produce bite-sized pieces.
2. Add cucumber to dressing and stir to combine.

Serving suggestions

Serve with toasted pita bread or just eat with a spoon.

Many of my recipes call for roasted garlic, as it is milder than raw garlic. It can also be served as a spread or mezze with toasted baguettes and olive oil for dipping.

Ingredients

(ingredients)* 1 head garlic

• 2 T extra virgin olive oil
• (amount) { } % %(ingredient)aluminum foil

Procedure

(prodecure)# Preheat oven to 350F.

1. Remove the outermost layers of skin from the head of garlic. Cut the top {1/4}” off the head of garlic to expose the cloves. Do not peel further.
2. Place in the center of a double layer of aluminum foil and drizzle with olive oil, making sure that the top of each exposed clove is coated.
3. Fold aluminum foil into a packet around the garlic, place on a cookie sheet (to catch any drips), and bake for about one hour. Garlic should be golden and fragrant when done.
4. Allow head to cool slightly. Remove the cooled garlic paste from the head by cutting off the stem end and squeezing the paste from each clove into a small bowl; discard the skins. Mash the garlic paste with a fork or back of a spoon until smooth. Use paste as desired. Alternately, use a fork to scoop whole garlic cloves out of the paper skin.

Serving suggestions

Serve hot or at room temperature with olives and fresh ch{e\}vre, or use as an alternative to raw garlic in recipes where a milder garlic flavor is desired.

The kids’ gymnasium has a Kids’ Night Out event tonight with pizza and inflatable rides and a zip line and games and so the second I heard about this I signed both of ours up, not registering that it was in fact also Rebecca’s birthday. See what a horrible mother I am! Instead of staying home with us boring adults, she gets to go to the gym and have a party!

Matthew and I took the opportunity to go to the NRA range and practice some more. I did a lot of target practice using both the standard and sub-compact Springfield XDs, skewing towards the sub-compact because even with the shorter barrel length hampering accuracy at greater distances it fits into my hands better.

A very nice NRA employee helped me out a great deal with my stance. I’d been doing Weaver but was constantly, consistently low. After a few adjustments, I was a great deal more on target at 18’ with isosceles than I had ever been with Weaver at 12’.

And then, because I am a glutton for punishment, I picked up the shotgun. Round one, Brenneke K.O. 1 oz slug. Grip tightly and lean into it to avoid recoil as much as possible. BOOM! Shoulder hurts like the dickens. Round two, Remington 1 oz slug. Grip even tighter. BOOM! Shoulder in pain. NRA guy walks up and taps me and asks, “What are you shooting?”

“This stuff,” I point at the boxes on my table.

“You might want to try the Reduced Recoil slugs.” He points at the girl next to me who does not have a bruise the size on Montana growing on her shoulder who was convinced to pick up the shotgun because I was shooting a shotgun.

And so I look at Matthew and ask him very nicely to stop reloading magazines for me and buy a box of the reduced recoil rounds, because at this point I’d really like to be able to take more than two shots (one of which, by the way, I totally nailed at 18’) in any given session before my shoulder gives out and I have to go sit in the viewing area and look pretty. So he stood in line at the front desk and I stayed at the firing line and practiced with the Springfields at 18’ and then he came back with two boxes of rounds and I tried out one. BOOM! Shoulder… well, it wasn’t any worse, but at that point the previous two rounds were happily reminding me of just how much force they’d exerted into my collarbone and I left the firing line mightily peeved that I wasn’t going to get to try the rifle.

We drove back home and picked up the kids, who apparently had such a wonderful time that they’d rather not have left, thank you very much. Matthew reports that Rebecca was busy practicing her flying skills in the game of Red Rover, Red Rover, much to the other team’s chagrin (and ultimate demise).

I spent the rest of the evening icing my shoulder. Lovely.

Discarded

1. Two black shirts that were more hole than not.
2. One teddy bear, well loved, which had a bath and never really recovered.
3. Four mismatched socks.
4. One broken (and yet still obnoxious) tamborine.
5. Seven catalogs.
6. A stack of paint cards from a disastrous web design incident.

Final score: 15+.

When he did reading work this morning, Marcus said he wanted cough drops. I thought he was faking.

When I drove Rebecca to gymnastics, he slept in the car. I thought the weekend might have tired him out.

When I drove to the bank to make a deposit, he sat quietly in the lobby and didn’t make a peep. I thought he was running a temperature and might have a bug.

When we stopped to get him cough syrup, he rode in the shopping cart. I thought he might have a bigger bug and bought flu-specific Triaminic.

When we walked in the door, he made a beeline for the bathroom and almost but not quite made it to the toilet before vomiting profusely. I hate being right 25% of the time.

This evening, I made my very first batch of liquid laundry detergent! It should set up overnight so that I can use it tomorrow, because I am almost out of Tide and I refuse to buy any more commercial detergents.