Tanuki

Why must all our relationships be built on LIES

Was inspired to do this when chica wanted a smoked chicken and it seemed kinda wasteful to have the grill going for hours with just a lil 3 # chicken in it. That’s a useful tip in general for time and fuel meal prep efficiency- if you’re heating up a grill or oven anyway get a bunch of veggies cleaned, rubbed in oil, lightly salt and toss those lil monkeys on there too-carrots, tomatoes, onions, garlic, beets, peppers, you name it.
So yeah, I had some smoked beets and onions as a side effect of chicken. If you want to make this but don’t have the wherewithal for grilling and smoking just skip that step (though the smokiness is lovely) and allow for a longer boil time. Also, maybe add some smoked salt because the smoke is je ne sais quois.
Smoked beet baba ghanouj (vegan).
Smoke beets and onions til just softened. It’ll depend on what else you’re grilling and at what temp. You’ll be using 1 1/2 C beets and 1/2 C onion. Use the rest in salads and s**t.
In a small saucepan cover your beets and onion with water, along with 1/3 C soaked cashews. If you don’t have cashews use soaked almonds, macadamia or Brazil nuts, or walnuts or hazelnuts. Allergic to nuts? Leave them out and when we get to the tahini part use an extra 1/3C on top of what’s called for.
Bring to a boil, and keep at a LOW boil for about 20 minutes.
Drain. Put it all in a blender, add 5 or 6 cloves garlic, 1/4 C fresh lemon juice, 1/4tsp toasted ground cumin, 1/8tsp ground white pepper or cayenne. Blend about 30 seconds.
Now add 1/3C tahini (or double if you skipped the nuts) and 1+ 1/4tsp kosher salt and blend on high for 2minutes. At the one minute mark start drizzling in 1/3C of high quality (tastes good on its own) EVOO, or avocado oil.
When it’s so smoooooooooth it must be a Li-Mo-Sine taste for seasoning and adjust salt, cumin, and lemon juice if you want to change the balance. If you add anything at that point blend another 10 seconds.
And there you are, beet baba!
If you got those good greens with your beets you could make some beet leaf dolmades to go with.
But that, my friends, is another recipe for another time.

I try not to let myself be a public killjoy too often, but I always make an exception for this.
Pets are terrified by fireworks and so are wild animals. Depending on weather conditions where you are you may also start a fire that can’t be controlled until it’s damaged some, or many, lives.
The debris from many fireworks is toxic to animals, and many die from ingesting this poison.
I don’t like to tell anyone how to live their lives, I get the world can seem pretty joyless lately and everyone is snatching at any little bright spot they can, for themselves and their kids.
But if you’re on the fence, and if you care about things like animals, damage to the environment, and basic nasty littering…. Maybe you can think of something else this year.
Either way, whether you are celebrating the fourth this year because you see good reason to be patriotic, or you just can’t feel that vibe because of the state of things, I hope you squeeze some joy from your day.