hummus | organised castle

I was recently reading a discussion about home-made hummus and what constituted the perfect result. I realised that I was unable to contribute very little to the discussion as I do not usually measure any of the ingredients as it is all done by taste.

When I made another batch I was careful to measure the ingredients and write down the method and here it is.

HUMMUS

1 1/2 cups dried chickpeas
3 cloves garlic (roasted)
1 large lemon (zest and juice)
60ml olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon smoky paprika
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
1 heaped tablespoon peanut paste

Cover the chickpeas with 4 cups boiling water and soak for 4 hours. Drain chickpeas, place in saucepan and add fresh water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 2 hours or until tender. Drain chickpeas and place in blender/food processor with garlic, lemon juice, lemon zest and oil and blend until smooth. Add spices and peanut paste and blend. If mixture is too thick add a little water or more oil/lemon juice if you prefer.

NOTES: I always roast the garlic as I found the flavour is sweeter and more subtle. I use about 1/4 cup lemon juice which is the yield from 1 of our lemons. The peanut paste is used instead of tahini which I do not particularly like. I use one made from freshly ground peanuts with no additives. The salt is important to release the other flavours. I use pink Himalayan salt. Although I make my hummus using dried chickpeas you could also use canned chickpeas. You would probably need 2 cans for the quantity in the recipe.

There is no right or wrong way to make hummus – it really is a matter of personal taste.

Dried chickpeas

Chickpeas soaking

Chickpeas ready to cook

The final result

This recipe makes a substantial quantity. It keeps quite well in the fridge for a week or can be frozen.

Do you make hummus? Any personal tips or tricks?

I didn’t sew today (or this week) but today I cooked. More specifically I cooked this afternoon and evening as I went shopping this morning.

Last night I cooked pumpkin with vegetable stock in the slowcooker. This afternoon I cooked potatoes, fried some onion and added the pumpkin mixture. This made 7 large serves of soup. I had one for dinner and here are the others ready to go in the freezer.

With the remainder of the pumpkin I sliced it up, brushed with a mixture of oil and balsamic vinegar and roasted it. I will use the roasted pumpkin slices on pizzas for dinner on Tuesday night. Two trays ready to go in the oven.

Once the pumpkin mixture was finished in the slow cooker I cooked the chickpeas which had been soaking over night to make hummus.

The next thing into the slow cooker was honey soy chicken. 8 chicken thigh fillets, 3 tablespoons honey and 2 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce. Once the chicken was cooked I removed the pieces with a slotted spoon and poured the juice into a small saucepan and thickened it with arrowroot. 4 serves ready to freeze.

After the chicken was done I washed the slow cooker then added kidney beans to make refried beans which you can find in this blog post.

I make my own gluten-free pizza bases and normally make enough for 6 bases and freeze them. There were none in the freezer so it was time to make another batch. Here is the dough divided into pieces. The first 2 bases were already in the oven by the time I took the photo.

Here are 6 pre-cooked bases ready to be bagged and frozen. I use opened out cereal packets to separate things that I am freezing. The dividers can be washed and re-used many times.

I picked lemons and made lemon cordial. You can read more about it here.

I also made more butter mixture and 8 serves of chilli con carne (no photo) as well as dividing up the meat which I bought and packing it into the freezer.

Cooking and preparing meals is a never-ending task but it is good to have a few meals and ingredients prepared to make the job a bit easier each evening.