I guess this is pretty easy one.
- Issue scads of low-interest variable rate mortgages to people who could barely afford them
- Raise interest rates to burst the housing bubble and drive housing prices down thus rendering said mortgages simultaneously unaffordable and un-refinancable
- Nearly double the price of oil and gas, jacking up the basic cost of daily living and the price of everything you buy including food.
- Create a frenzy to produce ethanol from corn, rocketing up the price of the one item that pretty much our entire food chain is based on.
- Set timer, sit back and wait.
That's an easy recipe for a recession. Now that its here, lets look at some recipes that are great to make in a recession (in other words, cheap).
Fusion Hummus
You can buy a small tub of hummus in the grocery store for $3. Or you can make 3x as much for about $1.50, and it'll be better. Hummus is great stuff. Its relatively healthy, cheap, and can be made in 5 minutes from pantry ingredients so you don't have to make a special shopping trip. Basic hummus is just chickpeas, olive oil, garlic and lemon juice whizzed up in a processor. It's much better with tahini (sesame seed paste) added, but tahini's not a pantry item for most people. IMHO hummus is better using a pantry staple: peanut butter. With that, a dash of sesame oil, and fermented black beans, you get the basic hummus flavor but with a mysterious (unless you know whats in it) and fabulous added flavor note that makes it addictively good and a more versatile complement to non-Mediterranean dishes including Asian, Southwest, BBQ, and others.
3 cups chickpeas (2 washed cans, or use reconstituted dried beans)
3 cloves garlic
3 TBSP peanut butter
2 TBSP olive oil
2 TSP sesame oil
1 1/2 TBSP fermented black beans
3/4 TSP salt
Juice from one large lemon, divided in half
Whiz the ingredients in a processor with half the lemon juice in a processor. Taste. The amount of lemon is really a matter of taste; add more lemon juice (and salt) as needed. That's it.
This makes a big 2+ cup batch which will keep weeks in the fridge. Its no problem to halve it, but if you serve it to a crowd you might be surprised at how much they eat. It's really good, much more so that run of the mill hummus.
All the ususal dip uses plus a great sandwich condiment with veggies or smoked turkey'; add chopped up chicken and sweet onion for an awesome and healthier chicken salad; or spread on top of a salmon fillet and broil.
