hummus – And What I Ate

Black Bean and Cilantro Hummus

The incomparable Caravia’s does just about everything perfectly. Their food is amazing, their produce is the best/most organic you can find in the area, everything is selected with care and detail, and the health inspector, while visiting, told them “If every place was this clean, I’d be out of a job”. Oh, and it’s a family-run business (by one of my favorite families of all time) and you should go there immediately, if not sooner.

Anyway, they make a ton of awesome food, but one of my favorites is their black bean and cilantro hummus. I tried to duplicate it, but I’ll admit a loss when I meet one – theirs is still better. So the next time you visit Clarks Summit, pick some up. If not, this will do as a substitute!

BLACK BEAN AND CILANTRO HUMMUS (makes enough for a party-size serving)
– 1 BPA-free can of chick peas (also called garbanzo beans)
– 1/2 BPA-free can of black beans
– approx. 3 tbsp. cilantro
– 1/4 C. tahini
– 1/4 C. EVOO
– 1/4 – 1/3 C. chicken (or vegetable) broth
– juice of 1 lime
– 1 tsp. cumin
– kosher salt to taste

1. Drain and rinse the black beans and the garbanzo beans. Add the garbanzo beans to a bowl, set the black beans aside for later.

2. In the bowl with the chick peas, add the tahini, EVOO, 2 TBSP of cilantro, cumin and kosher salt. Mix it all together pretty well.

3. Add the mixture to a food processor, pulse it until it’s combined.

4. Little by little, add the broth – continuing to pulse the mixture – until it’s pretty light and fluffy.

5. Put the mix back in the bowl, stir in the 1/2 can of black beans and the remaining 1 TBSP of chopped cilantro. Mix it all together and refrigerate. Serve with chips, veggies, pretzel chips, or even use it as a sandwich spread.

White Bean “Hummus” with Sage and Roasted Garlic

For months now I’ve been in a salad/scoop/soup kind of mood. That’s going to change next week, because my mom just let me know I’m in charge of making a pumpkin pie “with tiny leaves made out of dough” for Thanksgiving. I’ve never made a pumpkin pie. I’ve definitely never made one with “tiny leaves made out of dough”. Soo…in the interim, let’s get back to the 3 s’s. This one falls under the “scoop” category, and it’s awesome.

WHITE BEAN HUMMUS WITH SAGE AND ROASTED GARLIC (makes a side for about 5 people)
– 1 can white Northern beans, rinsed and drained
– couple sage leaves, chopped
– 1 clove garlic, roasted
– 1/4 EVOO (or less. Add this little by little to desired consistency)
– squeeze of lemon
– Kosher salt & freshly cracked black pepper to taste

1. Roast that garlic. Lop the top off of it, place it on a piece of tin foil, cover with some EVOO & salt, wrap the top loosely & place in an oven at 400 for about 30-40 mins.

2. Remove garlic from the oven when it’s soft & golden. Let it cool a little bit.

3. Rinse and drain a can of white beans. Put in a food processor.

4. Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves into the food processor with the beans (you can skip this completely if you don’t like roasted garlic. I do, though!)

5. Add chopped sage & lemon juice & salt/pepper.

6. Add EVOO little by little, blending well, until the “hummus” is combined and fluffy.

7. Serve with french bread, veggies, or (of course) pretzel chips.

— Side notes. It’s been an incredible couple of days. Without getting into the beginning part of this week and why it was wonderful, in the last 24 hours two of my friends Pat & Peggy got engaged. I set them up at the beginning of this year, and couldn’t be more excited for them. This is the second couple I set up who are getting married!!! I mean that’s got to be a better track record than Patti Stanger, right??

Also, we had an incredible time promoting The Great American Smokeout this morning with one of my favorites, Ryan Leckey, at South Scranton Intermediate. I do PR for Geisinger-CMC. The hospital, and Geisinger in general, is really involved with community health initiatives, so we brought in the Director of the PA Department of Health to talk to the middle school kids about the dangers of smoking, and I built a morning show (“Leckey Live“) around it. I could talk for an hour straight about everything that went wrong while I was trying to coordinate this, but I won’t, because when I walked into South Scranton this morning and saw how they had decked out the whole auditorium with signs and posters and banners etc., I was so psyched about how it looked that I high-fived the maintenance guys who’d shown up at 4am to let us into the school to start taping. South Scranton has a special place in my heart as the school we used to do our high school plays at before Scranton Prep built our fancy stage & auditorium, and it was so cool to be back there as an adult, coordinating one of my favorite morning shows ever, and feel the energy in the place from everyone (90+ kids, cheerleaders, parents, school staff, Geisinger representatives) who was so excited to be there. Ryan and his cameraman Corey just knock it out of the park, every time, but today was something extra special.

At least once a day I think “I love my job”. Today I had a bunch of those moments.

Enjoy the clips from the show here and here.

Roasted Garlic Hummus

I eat so much hummus on a weekly basis that I finally decided to try to make it myself. It seems like a really impressive recipe, but is incredibly easy and tasty, and has become one of the most-requested things that I make (and not just in our house!). The roasted garlic adds a nice dimension of subtle flavor, and you can skip it if you want, but why not just try it once?

—– You willllllll tryyyyyy the roastedddd gaaarrrllliiicccc ——

Omg weird, didn’t you just get the urge to break out a garlic bulb to roast??

ROASTED GARLIC HUMMUS (Serving size varies, depending on your house’s level of hummus consumption)

– 2 cans chickpeas (15.5 oz each), rinsed and drained

– 1 whole garlic bulb

– 1/3 C. tahini

– 1/3 C. EVOO

– Approx. 1 C. chicken broth (or vegetable broth for a full vegan side)

– 1/2 lemon, juiced

– 1 tsp. paprika

– 2 tbsp. freshly chopped parsley (flat leaf)

– 1/2 tsp. kosher salt

– 1/2 tsp. freshly ground pepper

1. Preheat oven to 450.

2. Lop the top off a full bulb of garlic, and discard. Place garlic bulb in a muffin tin, drizzle with olive oil, and cover tightly with aluminum foil. Bake for approx. 30 – 40 minutes, or until garlic is roasted.

3. Squeeze out the roasted cloves of garlic (or use a fork to extract) into a large mixing bowl.

4. Add chickpeas, EVOO, tahini, lemon juice, paprika, parsley, salt & pepper to the mixing bowl. Stir well to combine.

5. Add mixture to a Food Processor, pulse to combine, then add the chicken or veggie stock little by little as you continue to blend the chickpea mixture. The consistency will change from kind of chunky to fluffy and thick – keep adding the broth until you have the consistency you want.

6. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours. The flavors will continue to combine and deepen over this time, so when you add seasonings after blending it, make sure to add a little less than what you think it really needs.

7. Serve with carrots, celery, the ever-popular pretzel chip, or use as a spread on sandwiches or apps.

Happy 12.12.12!

Roasted Red Beet, White Bean and Sage “Hummus”

On our way up to Good Commons, one of the snacks they stocked “The Good Bus” with was an incredibly tasty beet and white bean dip. They served it with parsnip sticks, which were crunchy and a little spicy, but I was so surprised by how good this dip was that I knew I had to try and copy it when I got home.

I’ve really tried to incorporate beets into my diet – especially after reading about how beet juice was making the rounds in this summer’s Olympic Village as a natural performance enhancer – but sometimes I just can’t get past the “earthy” (read: dirty) taste they can have. Roasting them makes them a little sweeter, and the addition of sage lightens the whole dip. I tried to copy this completely by serving it with the parsnip “sticks”, but we went back to old faithful, the pretzel chip. Celery would be really nice with this too. If you have kids, I’m sure they’d go crazy over the fact that this dip is pink, since it was a cool little detail even for the over 30 crowd (ahem).

ROASTED BEET, WHITE BEAN, AND SAGE “HUMMUS” (adapted from Weelicious)
– 1 small beet, cleaned but unpeeled
– 2 cloves garlic, unpeeled
– 1 15 oz. can white beans, rinsed and drained
– 10 fresh sage leaves, chopped
– 1 tbsp. lemon
– 1/4 c. EVOO

1. Heat your oven to 400.

2. Place washed beet and garlic cloves in a little pouch of aluminum foil. You want to make sure it’s tightly closed, but also has some space so that air can circulate and the flavors can roast together. Bake for approx. 45 minutes.

3. Remove the pouch from the oven – carefully, some of the beet juice spilled out of mine and it was a MESS – and remove the skin from the beet. Again, beets are messy and will stain just about everything, including your hands. Either wear disposable gloves when peeling the skin (which should slide right off after the beet is roasted) or use a paper towel to kind of scrub it off. Chop beet roughly, and add to a larger bowl.

4. Remove the skin from the garlic cloves and toss into the bowl with the beets. Add chopped sage, lemon juice, and olive oil, then put the whole mixture into a food processor.

5. Combine in the food processor until smooth. Add kosher salt to taste, then serve “hummus” with celery, carrots, pretzel chips, or parsnip sticks.

Sorry, parsnips. You’re pretty. I tried.