Tuesday, September 08, 2009

So I have approximately five recipes that I can make flawlessly.

1. Swiss Gruyere Fondue
2. Baked Oatmeal
3. Smoky Mac & Cheese
4. Blueberry Pudding
5. Roasted-red pepper Hummus

That's it. Anything else in the kitchen, and it might turn out great, or it might turn out really, really not great. Rest assured that if I can make these recipes flawlessly, so can you. I mean, to give you an idea, Rachael Ray's famous 30 minute meals regularly take me an hour to make.

So, I found this hummus recipe in a vegetarian cookbook at the Hastings in Brownwood about 12 years ago, back when we were veggies in college and I was so broke that I sat there and copied the recipe out of the book instead of buying it. Ouch. But the recipe is so good! And honestly, if I knew the name of the cookbook now, I would totally go back and buy it.
I added red peppers for the first time about 5 years ago, and I've never looked back. I'm fairly sure Nathan is responsible for adding the red-pepper part, so thank him.

You'll need:
2-3 red peppers. (At HEB they're on sale for .79 right now!)
3 tbl olive oil
juice of 2-3 lemons
2 med. garlic cloves
1/4 c. or a little more tahini (I warn you: do NOT substitute peanut butter here.)
1 or 2 cans garbanzo beans, drained

1. Preheat the broiler.
2. Line a cookie sheet or two with foil. Cut red peppers in half and take out all the innards. Spray or brush outside with olive oil.
Beautiful!


3. Broil the peppers for at least 15 minutes, until the skins are completely blackened. This might take more like 20 minutes, and that's fine.
These aren't quite there.


Wait for it...

Wait for it...

Done!

Measure 2-3 tbl. olive oil and juice of 1 lemon (this recipe is by no means an exact science, but please watch those lemon seeds-- they are NO good!) into food processor or blender.
Add garlic (the beauty of a food processor is that you don't even have to chop it up) and tahini and blitz until smooth. Drain garbanzos from one can and rinse. I always use a colander to do this.

Add beans and blitz until the mixture is creamy. I literally mix this stuff for like 2-3 minutes. Get it CREAMY! Add a little salt.
By this time, the peppers should be cool enough to handle. Peel off all the blackened skins from the peppers. Tear them into long strips as you add them to food processor. It should turn from a taupey color into a lovely pinky color as you blend it.
Voila!


If the mixture is too dry, add a little olive oil as you blend. When I made this most recent batch, there was quite a bit of moisture from the peppers, so the hummus got kinda too soupy. I just added another can of garbanzos, juice of 1/2 lemon, a bit more tahini, and a little more salt for good measure.
Perfect!

Yummy in a pita or wrap with any of the following:
spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, avocado, sprouts, corn, black beans, sauted onions, whatevs.

Delicioso!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't wait to make this when I have my food processor! Your roasted peppers look delish, too, I usually get antsy and take mine out before they are roasty toasty.

Can you do blueberry pudding next? I want to know how to do that one. :)

amy said...

I didn't necessarily plan to share all 5 of my ridiculously-easy-ridiculously-delicious recipes, but absolutely! I will most definitely post the blueberry pudding recipe next. Maybe even this weekend...

Amy Russell said...

And if you posted the smokey mac and cheese, I could just check here instead of asking you or Nathan to email it to me everytime I want to make it. Or I suppose I could save it an a place where I can actually find it again....

Also, I love that you have a picture of the colander :)

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