Lots of Pictures (and hummus!)

It has been a while since I shared some pictures, so here we go. Also, I've included a handy photoessay entitled "Nathan and Rachel Ann make hummus."

First off, the King is on the back of one of our friendly neighborhood No Parking signs:No, we don't live here, but it is right down the street and absolutely beautiful!
Saturday morning I whipped up two loaves of sandwich bread. Good gracious. I did not double the recipe--it just produced that much bread. I had to knead it in two batches because my Kitchen Aid was freaking out. Seriously--that's a lot of dough when a Kitchen Aid can't handle it. Still, it turned out lovely, don't you think?
OK...How to make hummus.

Step one: Roast some garlic. You can do this in the oven or, if you're really fancy and lazy and hot, in your Lil Dipper Crock Pot! Just cut the ends of a few cloves, wrap in foil and stick in the Lil Dipper for a few hours until your entire apartment smells super yummy and your neighbors wonder if you are possibly hiding a little Italian grandmother somewhere in the apartment...
Step two: Rinse a can of chickpeas. Dump in food processor with garlic. Actually, from here on out, just place everything in the food processor. The best thing about making blended dips (you know, mushy things) is that order or precision is really not all that important.
Step three: Add two tablespoons lemon juice. Fresh squeezed if that's your thing (but it is not mine--I love jarred lemon juice).
Step four: Add a quarter cup tahini. This is very, very important. Without tahini you simply have mushy chickpeas. Um...gross. PS--Aren't our measuring cups and spoons really cool? Nathan's sister gave them to us and they are collapsible and store flat in our drawer aka they are absolutely perfect for apartment-dwellers whose kitchens include ONE drawer.
Step five: Add some salt. We never measure this. Do what feels right. And yes, my salt shaker is Tupperware. You are about to see more Tupperware in my sink. I <3 Tupperware more than I can tell you. It is one of those things I'm a name-brand snob about. One day I will be a Tupperware lady. I promise.
Step six: Throw in one-third cup of water. See my Tupperware in my dirty sink?
Step seven: Add in three tablespoons of olive oil. I am not an olive oil snob as you can see. That mess is expensive and Trader Giotto's is good enough for me and I love the price: $7.99 for a whole mess of it.
Step eight: Throw in something else to make it tasty. Usually we add hot sauce, but we were out so we threw in some Mrs. Dash we found while unpacking. Uh-huh...while unpacking. It had apparently been in Nathan's dorm room stuff since freshmen year. Well, those of you who know me know old food and I have very few problems with each other so I threw it in.
Step nine: Whirl it up and enjoy! Mmm...we've sort of already eaten this entire batch. Yes, I had hummus for dinner last night, OK?
Oh, and here's what on my knitting needles these days when I'm not working on that other project that requires a large baby's weight of yarn. Someday that project will be finished. Maybe someday these socks will be finished too...