Keeping my word would be easier if it was February 31st

Spicy edamame hummus

Remember last month in January when I said I was going to dedicate a post each month to trying a recipe made by a fellow WordPress blogger? High off my bacon-onion marmalade success, I had all the confidence in the world for February. And then my birthday happened. I spent one weekend in Tacoma with family, one weekend (my actual birthday) with a few close friends and the third weekend was my big blow-out party.

So basically I would just like all of us to pretend that February is not a short month and that I haven’t already failed at my resolution. Everyone in agreement? Excellent!

Mr Wonderful White Cake

For February, I wanted to tackle a recipe from one of my longest standing blogging buddies, Liz from food for fun and deLizious Food Communications. I actually made a recipe from her blog last summer, the Mr. Wonderful White Cake, for a family reunion potluck. And it was, in fact, just as delicious as she had promised. It was also incredibly easy to whip up which was good because I was on such a time crunch that I almost bought a cake mix. This was ten times better!

But this post needed to be new stuff and since I was already late, I figured I’d try out two of Liz’s recipes to make up for being a slacker. The first one was super quick, I whipped it up in 10 minutes: spicy edamame hummus with lime and jalapeño.

The most time-consuming element of this recipe is cooking the soy beans, which took 5 minutes. Then everything is loaded into the food processor and blended with a touch of olive oil until it’s the consistency you prefer. A recipe this easy means that the next time you have a snack craving, this hummus could save you from a less healthy temptation.

I ate mine after a painfully long grocery shopping excursion. I arrived home so hungry I thought I would pass out…or scarf down a bag of chips. But instead I made this and felt so much better. It’s flavorful, you can make it as spicy as you like and it has the benefits of soy beans (protein, fiber and antioxidants). It’s also very pretty!

More bonuses: the list of ingredients is both small and affordable. Requiring no tahini, it gets some heat from the chile and its tanginess from the lime. And, of course, it calls for garlic — because hummus without garlic is like peanut butter without jelly. It was great with flat bread but I’m going to be eating it all week at work with fresh veggies instead.

The second deLizious recipe on my plate this week is French bread. I should mention I haven’t made bread since culinary school…12 years ago. Stay posted to see how it turned out!