Foodie, Interrupted

So it’s about time that I write a post up about hummus. It’s a versatile dip/spread that’s packed with protein, easily customizable to make a million different ways, happens to be vegan (the base recipe), is a snap to make, and can easily be made low to no fat. Also, it only requires 1 specialty ingredient, and if you want to make it without it, you can. Oh, and did I mention it’s absolutely delicious?

I love hummus. I really do. I go through periods of making a ton of it and then not making it for a while and then making it again and going “Why did I ever stop making hummus?”

Yes, you can buy hummus, and it is quite delicious, but it’s usually pricey (Trader Joe’s has extremely reasonable prices on hummus) and you can’t control the fat content that way, and store bought hummus can have a deceptive amount of fat. (However, I do want to know how Tribe of 40 Sheiks gets theirs so dense and thick. Chickpea flour?)

I got the basic recipe from where else but my favorite food blog, Foodie With Family. I can remember the first time I gave it a go. In fact, I might have even posted on that entry, raving about it. (Oh, look, I did.)

So depending on your recipe, hummus may not be low fat if you make it the way they say to do it. Hummus traditionally has olive oil in it (and then swirled on top of it) and as you probably already know, any oil is 14g a tablespoon. But hummus usually also has tahini in it. In short, sesame seed butter. It’s delicious stuff, but not only is it high in fat, it has a tendency to separate into the butter on the bottom and the sesame oil on top. Also, it may not be the easiest thing to find, depending on where you live. (I can always get it at my local natural food co-op or at Whole Foods, but I can buy a number of brands and sizes of containers at the Lebanese market that 8T and I frequent near his place in New Jersey.)

Yes, you can leave out the tahini. I’ve had delicious, tahini-free hummus before (at the coffee hour at UU church in central NJ). However, for your standard recipe, it really does give the hummus that je ne sais quoi that makes it taste like hummus and not just a bunch of ground up chickpeas. So the trick is to not put too much in, but enough in that it gives it that flavor.

So… what’s a basic hummus?

• chickpeas
• tahini
• lemon juice
• garlic
• liquid (preferably from the chickpeas when you cooked ‘em)
• salt

Play with the amounts… it really does make a difference. Throw ‘em in your food processor and blend the crap outta’em.

You can make hummus even more awesome by…

• Upping the amount of garlic (mmm, garlic hummus)
• Adding onions, cilantro &/or cumin
• Adding curry powder and honey
• Adding parsley
• Putting in a bit of balsamic vinegar (this is surprisingly, uniquely good)
• Adding dill

Roasted red pepper hummus is also the bomb diggity (and is the first hummus I ever had… I’m in debt to my Aunt Jackie for serving me hummus when I was 20). How about caramelized onion? Olive? The sky’s the limit, folks.

And now, a gratuitous picture of hummus. It’s the first hummus I made with my handy chopper. It’s dill & it was good.

Mangos were 10 for $10 at Safeway the other day. None of them were ripe so I put ‘em in bags to ripen them. (Mangos are one of the fruits that ripen with the gas they put off.)

So far, I have made:

• mango salsa (2 different batches)
• mango puree (put in ice cube trays and frozen)
• a mango smoothie with mango kefir, ice, and bits of fresh mango

I have also eaten mangos straight up. Because ZOMG YUM.

(I also happened to cook up a huge batch of dried chickpeas to replenish my supply that was depleted because I’ve been making up tons of hummus lately. I also made 2 types of hummus: 1 with Mexican flavors like cilantro, cumin, and red onion and the other a curry & honey hummus (like the President’s Choice brand hummus me and my ex Sirilyan used to get at our NoFrills supermarket))