Our friend Carrie came over for dinner tonight and we planned a nice, outdoors-because-it’s-too-hot-inside three-course feast! All the recipes come from Healthy Latin Cuisine, and tonight was the first time making them — they were all a hit!

For our appetizer, Lisa made these Plaintain “Spiders”:

Extremely easy to make, and really flavorful — shredded plantains, garlic, and ginger! We served it with some extra chimichurri sauce.

Plantain Spiders
—————-
2 large green plantains, peeled
6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced and cut into thin slivers
1 piece (1″) fresh ginger, peeled, thinly sliced and cut into thin slivers
salt and ground pepper
1 tbsp olive oil or nonstick spray

Preheat the oven to 400F. Coat a nonstick baking sheet iwth nonstick spray.
Grate each plantain on the coarse side of hand grater. Transfer to a bowl, add the garlic and ginger. Season with salt and pepper, toss to mix.
Using your fingers, shape the mixture into 1″ balls. Flatten slightly (don’t pack tightly). Arrange the flattened balls on the prepared baking sheet. Brush the balls with olive oil or coat generously with nonstick spray.
Bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown and crisp. Transfer to a platter and season with more salt and peppers, if desired.

Serves 4 (24 pieces)

Hooray, everyone loves hummous! Here’s the way Lisa’s family makes it. Goes great with pita bread, baked pita chips, or… anything, really.

Hummous
——-
3 cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
1/2 cup tahini (we use 1/3)
3/4 cup lemon juice
6-7 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 1/2 tsp salt

Drain two of the cans of chickpeas, leave the third can 1/2 undrained. Set aside 6 or 7 chickpeas. In a food processor, add the cans of chickpeas, including the liquid from the third can. Puree. Add the tahini, and continue to blend. Finally, add the lemon, garlic, and salt, and puree until desired consistency. Top with reserved chickpeas.

As an appetizer for the International Potluck, we made these bake-fried plantains. It was super-simple, just slice the plantains length-wise, place on a baking sheet with cooking spray, sprinkle with salt, and bake in a 350 degree oven until brown and crispy. We also made some guacamole (with tomatillos) and attempted to invent a black-bean dip. The guac worked out well, but the bean dip consistency just wasn’t what we were looking for. The plantain and guacamole recipes can be found in Healthy Latin Cooking.