This is from "The Book of New Israeli Food" by Janna Gur BASIC HUMMUS DIP Ingredients (serves 8-10) 1lb 2oz. small dry chickpeas 1Tblsp + 1/2 tsp baking soda 1cup raw top quality tahini 1Tblsp freshly squeezed lemon juice 2 cloves garlic, crushed salt to taste Directions 1. Soak the chickpeas overnight in a large bowl of cold water with 1 Tblsp of baking soda. 2. Drain and rinse the chickpeas and put them in a large pan. Add water until it reaches 1 inch above the chickpeas. Add remaining 1/2 tsp of baking soda and bring to a boil. Cook covered over low heat for 2-3 hours, until the chickpeas are very soft. Cool slightly, drain and save some of the cooking liquid. 3. Put the chickpeas in a food processor, add 2/3 cup tahini and process until smooth. If the paste is too thick, add a few tablespoons of the cooking liquid. Season with lemon, garlic, and salt; taste and adjust the seasoning. For a richer creamier version, add the remaining tahini and process until the hummus is completely smooth and fluffy, *****Galilee Style Hummus Set aside 1 cup of chickpeas. Puree the rest with 1/2 cup tahini and the seasonings. Add the whole chickpeas and mix, slightly mashing the chickpeas. The texture should remain somewhat chunky.

Thank you, ruthanna, for that link. I glanced through the recipes, picked out the easiest ones from Oct 29, 2009: Posted by joanm: Carmelized Butternut Squash Ina Garten 2 butternut squash (4 to 5 pounds total) 6 T. unsalted butter, melted 1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed 1 1/2 tea salt 1/2 tea black pepper Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Peel the squash, cut them in half lengthwise, and remove the seeds. Cut the squash into 1 1/4 to 1 1/2-inch cubes and place them on a baking sheet. Add melted butter, brown sugar, salt, and pepper. Toss all the ingredients and spread in a single layer on the baking sheet. Roast for 45 to 55 minutes. While roasting, turn the squash a few times with a spatula. ******* Posted by Robinkateb: Winter Squash Whole Wheat Bread 1 cup winter squash puree 1 Tbsp butter at warm room temperature or melted (you could sub oil if you want) 1/2 cup water 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour 1 cup all purpose flour 1/4 cup sugar (I use what ever sugar I am in the mood for, brown, sugar in the raw, turbinado, maple sugar...) 1 Tbsp vital wheat gluten (optional, especially if you use some white flour) 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt 1 3/4 tsp yeast Place the ingredients in your bread machine in the order listed. Turn it on and let the machine make you bread. ****** Here's a high-protein soup posted by Doucanoe: Hearty Pork Stew with Squash Source: Penzeys 2/09 1-1/2 lb boneless pork loin roast, trimmed and cubed (I used boneless chops) 3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1/4" slices 1 medium onion, chopped 2 c peeld parsnips, cubed 1-1/2 c butternut squash, peeled & cubed 4 c chicken broth 1 T fresh sage or 1 tsp dried 2 tsp fresh thyme or 3/4 tsp dried 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp pepper 3 T flour 3 T butter, softened In 4-5 quart slow cooker, mix the pork and remaining ingredients except flour and butter. Cover and cook on low 6-7 hours. OR... place in a covered pot in the oven at 350F for 2 hours.

It's very lean, and thus easy to dry out when cooking. I like to use it for making jerky. If you’re trying to go low-carb, you need some snacks that are low-carb, tasty and satisfying. Beef jerky meets those criteria, but buying $4 bags of jerky will bankrupt you. If you have a dehydrator, you can make large quantities of jerky far more economically than buying it. If you don’t have a dehydrator, you can get cooling racks that fit a half-sheet pan, or vertical racks on which you hang the seasoned raw beef strips, which you then place in the oven at its lowest setting for several hours. (You’re drying this, not cooking it.) --Here's a basic recipe for beef jerky that I worked up and find to be quite tasty: Guinness Beef Jerky Marinade (This amount of marinade is sufficient for about 5 to 6 pounds of beef, which I find fill my Nesco dehydrator's eight trays fairly full) 5 to 6 lbs lean beef, sliced thinly--see Note 1 2 bottles (12-14 oz each) Guinness Stout 2 tablespoons kosher salt OR 3 to 4 tablespoons soy sauce--"see Note 2 2 tablespoons garlic powder 2-4 tablespoons hot stuff --see Note 3 optional: liquid smoke, 1 to 2 tbsp In a large bowl pour stout and add salt, whisking to dissolve salt and decarbonate the stout. Add the garlic powder and hot stuff and mix well. Put the beef strips in the marinade by handfuls, swirling around to make sure all surfaces have come in contact with the marinade. Place the beef in a nonreactive container (a stainless stockpot works fine), pour the remaining marinade over the beef, mix well and refrigerate for at least an hour (more is better--overnight is fine). If you have time, mix up the beef strips every so often in the marinade. Place the strips flat on the trays and dry to your desired amount of dryness. I prefer crisp to leathery, but do it however you want. Note 1: Before slicing the beef, trim all extra fat off the surface of the meat. I like to use round roast because it's very lean; whenever possible, slice the strips across the grain. Slicing it with the grain results in a stringy final product. Eye of round costs a little more, but is very lean and also is very easy to slice across the grain, and that yields a less stringy product. Don't use a fatty cut of meat because it won't dry as thoroughly and won't have the storage properties of a leaner cut. (The fat can turn rancid.) Note 2: I have found mushroom flavored soy sauce at an Asian market. It works great in this recipe. Note 3: For the hot stuff, cayenne works well; you have to judge for yourself how hot your particular cayenne pepper is. (Mass market cayenne from brands like McCormick is relatively mild; powdered chili peppers from a Mexican or Indian market will be much hotter.) If you’re unsure, go easy with the hot stuff. You can always sprinkle a little more hot stuff on the finished product if you wish. I have used chipotle powder with good results; 4 tablespoons in this recipe makes a quite hot product, and 2 tbsp makes a pleasantly zingy one. If you want something quite mild, use sweet Hungarian paprika which would make a product not at all hot but would still have a very good flavor. You can also use smoked Spanish paprika (‘pimenton’) which comes in three degrees of hotness (sweet, bittersweet & hot). If you use that, though, or chipotle powder, don’t use any additional smoke flavor. --Don't use a hot sauce that's vinegar based (like Tabasco or Sriracha)--the vinegar taste will be concentrated in the finished product. The finished product can be stored in plastic ziplock bags in the freezer, and can be moved to the fridge when you open one. I find that a quart ziplock bag holds one Nesco tray's worth of dried jerky. Note that this recipe does not contain any curing agents like nitrates or nitrites, so I can't vouch for what would happen if you left this jerky at room temperature for several days. Storing it this way, though, I've never had any of it go bad. That's partly because it tastes so good, a bag never lasts that long once I open one.

I looooooooove the clovey bits, they're the best part. I've also used apple juice on a ham when I didn't have pineapple, and it was good. Our hams come with the skin still on. If yours does, cut around the shank and carefully peel off the skin (so the skin is still on the shank end), leaving the fat intact, then score the fat (not all the way through) in a criss-cross pattern.