Hummus is a Middle Eastern spread or dip made from chickpeas, tahini, lemon, garlic and other spices.

America has gone hummus-crazy as any trip to a supermarket will tell show you: numerous brands and flavors.

Tahini is combined with chickpea puree in a proportion of 1:6. There are more chickpeas, but tahini, which looks like natural peanut butter with separated oil on top, gives tahini the nutty flavor of ground sesame seeds.

Tahini is a paste made from ground sesame seeds and it makes the hummus taste incredible. You can buy tahini at the store or you can make it yourself. To make hummus that’s 100% from scratch, we use homemade tahini.

If you want to make your own tahini, here’s a recipehere’s a recipe. It’s essentially toasted sesame seeds with a little oil in a food processor.

What if you want a simple dip of tahini, no chickpeas?

Try this recipe is from Einat Admony, chef-restaurateur of Balaboosta, a James Beard Award-nominated Middle Eastern restaurant in New York City, and her other restaurants; Taim, a falafel restaurant; and Bar Bolonat.

Serve the tahini dip as you would hummus: with crudités, pita, falafel, as a sandwich spread, on a veggie burger.
 
 
RECIPE: TAHINI DIP

Ingredients For 2 Cups

 
Preparation

1. ROAST the bell peppers in a broiler. Place an oven rack 6 inches from the broiler element; preheat the broiler. While the broiler heats…

2. LINE a baking sheet with foil. Place the peppers on the baking sheet and broil until the peppers are charred black on all sides, turning them with tongs as needed.

3. TRANSFER the peppers to a heatproof bowl and cover the bowl with plastic wrap to let the peppers steam. Once they are cool enough to handle, rub off and discard the charred skins, the stem and seeds. Cut the remaining flesh into chunks.

[1] Tahini dip, spread and sauce (photo and recipe © Einat Admony | Balaboosta NYC).

[2] Red bell peppers (photo CC0 Public Domain | PX Here.

[3] Garlic (photo © Tijana Drndaski | Unsplash).

5. ADD the roasted peppers along with the salt, sugar and paprika. Purée until smooth. Then, with the motor running, gradually add the tahini to form a thickened, creamy sauce or spread.

Chocolate Whipped Honey from Savannah Bee (photo © Savannah Bee).

Whipped Honey with Chocolate is one of the more innovative honey products we’ve seen in a while.

It’s made by one of the country’s finest honey producers, Savannah Bee Company.

What does it taste like? Just what you’d expect: chocolate and honey.

It’s a combination of just two ingredients: pure wildflower honey and Fair Trade cocoa powder; creamy, spreadable and delicious:

There’s also a recipe for The Best Whipped Honey Chocolate Cake Ever.
 
Savannah honeys are certified Gluten Free and KSA kosher.
 
 
> FOR MORE GLORIOUS HONEYS, HEAD TO SAVANNAHBEE.COM <

May is National Egg Month (the first week in April is National Egg Salad Week).

So how about a boiling-time chart from Good Eggs, below?

Also check out our Egg Glossary, and see how many different types of eggs you’ve had. There are 10 options in chicken eggs alone!

Before you get to the chart below, you can:
 
 
1. CHECK OUT SOME OF OUR FAVORITE ARTICLES ON EGGS

 
 
2. BROWSE SOME OF OUR FAVORITE EGG RECIPES

 
 
3. EGGS BENEDICT VARIATIONS

Here are substitutes for the English muffins, ham/bacon and hollandaise:

4. DEVILED EGG RECIPES

November 2nd is National Deviled Egg Day, but some fans could eat them every day of the year.

Start off with The New Deviled Egg Isn’t Deviled, and our Mix & Match Deviled Egg Stuffings.

Then check out:

[1] A flat of brown eggs (photo © Szucs Laszlo | Unsplash).

[2] Asparagus-Bacon Strata. Here’s the recipe (photo © Cava).

[3] Peppers With Baked Eggs. Here’s the recipe from Foodie Crush (photo © Foodie Crush).

[4] Cheesy Polenta Bowl. Here’s the recipe from DeLallo (photo © DeLallo).

[1] Orange juice vinaigrette (photo © California Olive Ranch).

[2] Avocado, grapefruit and kale salad (photo © Good Eggs).

[3] Avocado, black bean and red bell pepper salad (photo © Avocados From Chile).

May 4th is National Orange Juice Day. Here’s something that’s both special and easy to make in less than 15 minutes.

California Olive Ranch sells delicious artisan olive oils, which we often use for vinaigrettes.

They developed this recipe for Orange Juice Vinaigrette, which we love on green salads, fruit salads and avocado salads (a recipe for the latter is below).
 
 
RECIPE #1: ORANGE JUICE VINAIGRETTE

Ingredients For 1/2 Cup

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE in a blender the orange juice, rice wine vinegar, salt and pepper.

2. PULSE the blender to dissolve the salt in juice and vinegar.

3. ADD the olive oil and pulse briefly to incorporate.
 
 
RECIPE #2: AVOCADO SALAD

While avocado salad can be as simple as a fan of avocado slices with vinaigrette.

There are so many delicious ingredients that can be combined into avocado salad and brightened with orange vinaigrette.

Take your pick of these ingredients to create a mixed salad.

Principal Ingredients

 
Enhancements

If you love fish, let us introduce you to Sitka Salmon Shares, a wild-caught Alaskan seafood delivery service.

Similar to a CSA—Community Supported Agriculture—which supports local farmers by prepaying for a set schedule of fruit and vegetable deliveries, Sitka Salmon Shares is a CSF—Community Supported Fishery.

The program supports small-boat family fishermen. You sign up in advance, and a box of magnificent, sustainanbly-caught fish appears on your doorstep monthly during the fishing season (April through December).

Sitka is a port city in southeastern Alaska, near Juneau, the state capital, which is inland.

Sitka sits on the west side of Baranof Island, on the Gulf of Alaska.

It’s there that a collective of local fishermen set out to sea, pull the catch into their boats and quickly bring it to port.

There, it’s filleted, blast frozen to -50°F and individually vacuum-sealed, locking in the fresh-caught flavor.

We received our first box of fish more than a year ago. It was so delicious that as soon as we had finished our catch, we signed up for membership.

We’re a very happy member. The fish is as good as it gets.

Now that it’s gifting time for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, consider it for gifting.

Don’t forget to gift yourself with a plan.

It’s a wonderful gift for anyone who:

 
 
HOW GOOD IS IT?

Fish doesn’t get better than this.

Don’t worry for a second that the fish arrives frozen. Once you defrost and cook it, it tastes like it was just pulled out of the water.

We put two-thirds of our catch in the freezer, and one-third in the fridge, to slowly defrost.

The vacuum-packed seafood can sit in the fridge, defrosted for more than a week (we’ve had excellent results with salmon that spent two weeks in the fridge).

Sometimes we’ll eat our catch night after night, until it’s gone. We can’t stop eating it, and have seriously thought about adding a second membership so we can have even more fish.

The only thing that stops us is that we live in an apartment with one 42-inch refrigerator-freezer. We have not yet summoned up the strength to throw out all the ice cream, croissants, muffins and artisan breads to make way for the fish.

But we seriously consider it every time a new shipment arrives.

When we won’t be dining in for a week or so, some of the fish stays goes into the freezer for later in the month. It maintains its fresh taste without degrading.

 
 
HOW DO THE FISH TASTE?

The company’s motto is “from boat to doorstep.” The fish tastes like it was just pulled out of the water.

When we test fish or meat, we cook it simply, with no seasonings. The true test of flavor is how good they taste when they’re “naked.”

The Sitka Salmon Shares salmon and cod we tasted were so good, just steamed, that we had no need to add salt, pepper or lemon juice to the cooked fish. (We cooked it “medium rare.”)

We felt so good eating great fish for dinner, that we ordered a premium share in addition to our regular share.
 
 
WHAT YOU RECEIVE

You choose the species and quantity of fish for your monthly delivery, ranging from 3 to 9-month intervals (you can cancel at any time).

The 2020 catch is based on what’s seasonal and best in the sea. It typically includes:

 
 
A FEEL-GOOD PURCHASE

[1] Freshly caught and skinned wild salmon (all photos © Sitka Salmon Shares).

[2] Line-caught salmon.

[3] After they’re caught, the fish are quickly processed.

[4] They’re blast-frozen, and shipped by FedEx to your doorstep.

[5] The are sustainably line caught.

[6] Fresh-from-the-water salmon.

[7] Fresh-from-the-water Pacific Cod.

 
 
SIGN UP TODAY

Head to SitkaSalmonShares.com and pick a plan.

Then, relish each box of fish you receive.

If you’re not a skilled cook, remember: No fish-cooking skills are required. A simple steaming is marvelous (and very low in calories).

Your fish-loving friends and family will be thrilled with a gift of Sitka Salmon Shares.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Give a gift of fish and you provide a number of memorable meals.

NOTE:

Memberships are open now, and available year-round except for one transition week.

There is a one-week period in late September/early October when you cannot purchase a membership.

That being said, if you hit the website during that week, just come back the following week!