“I don’t care about spots on my apples, just leave me the birds and the bees, please.”
- Joni Mitchell, "Big Yellow Taxi"
If you’ve been following along with us this month, you’ll know it’s been a lot of Joni. To celebrate Earth Day a couple weeks ago we released a live video for our song, Joni, and an accompanying blog all about how we just need to go and listen to Joni Mitchell before we lose paradise once and for all. Now that it’s the first Wednesday of the month and it’s time for The Rumbly Tummy, and since the world is turning green and blooming, we decided to do a Joni inspired recipe, Blackberry Tahini Dip w/ Spotted Apples.
We’ve been getting lots of spotted apples recently from a food giveaway line in Black Mountain, NC called Bounty and Soul, a nonprofit that provides a produce market totally free and open to anyone in the area, regardless of income. Every week we go through a line in our truck in the abandoned, Bi-Lo parking lot and get handed a heaping boxful of produce by really nice people with smiles on their faces whose only motivation is that this abundance not get wasted. In addition to rice, beans, cabbage and a bunch of grapes, yesterday we got an entire extra crate of red tomatoes that we plan to turn into soup and last week picked up fresh bamboo shoots that we boiled until tender and added to a curry. So much abundance! So much plenty! Extreme hunger around the world could be eradicated four times over with all the food that is wasted in the world, a stat that is both staggering and heartbreaking. We feel lucky we were connected to this organization seeking to reimagine the way food systems are created and sustained in WNC, especially when they toss in a few apples.
So, slice yours up and give this Blackberry Tahini Dip a try. Easy to make, tart and creamy, fruity and protein dense, it’s just a really nice dip to have around. Although ours wasn’t around for too long…
Blackberry Tahini Dip w/ Spotted Apples
⅓ c tahini
2+ TBSP water
⅓ c heaping blackberries
⅓ c chickpeas
2 tsp heaping
3 TBSP lemon
Salt to taste
Sliced apples-- the spottier, the better :)
Blend all ingredients together. Add salt to taste. Serve with apples.