HUMMUS:
Hummus is a Levantine food dip or spread made from cooked, mashed chickpeas blended with tahini, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and garlic. Today, it is popular through the Middle East, North Africa, and in Middle Eastern cuisine around the globe.
I grew up in a household of very limited cooking abilities. When my Mother married my hillbilly father, his mother taught my Mom how to make the staple of the Hillbilly Diet, biscuits.
And my Mom made them good but as she often said, "Not as good as Mrs. Tipton makes them." But her mother-in-law told her "If you're going to marry one of my sons (she had eleven sons, no daughters) you going to have to feed him biscuits or else your marriage won't last." For sixty years my parents were married and I can barely remember a day that my Mom didn't make my father biscuits, sometimes twice a day.
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| Homemade Hillbilly Biscuits The Irish have their potatoes, the Italians have their pasta and hillbillies have their biscuits - major diet staple - goes with anything - slather gravy on top - YUM! |
Other than biscuits (and gravy), my Mom's culinary skills were rather ("rawther") limited.
Once I got away from home (at 18 years of age going the Army) I had food for the first time in my life that I never "et" before. "Exotic" food like veal, rice (regular rice not rice pudding which is what I thought Chinese always ate, rice pudding), salads (we had corn on the cob and pickled beans, a salad bowl never graced our table), and chili (my Mom's version of "chili" was string beans and tomatoes - NO chili powder - first time I ever tasted chili powder was when I was in the A.R.M.Y). You get the idea? Haute cuisine was not the forte at the Tipton Household. Fried chicken, pig's feet
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| Scrapple - I LIKE! (as long as it's cooked properly) |
Once I got away from home, first stop the Army, I was introduced to a whole new culinary kaleidoscope of foodstuff to put down my pie hole. I won't go through the whole itinerary on this blog post, which longer already than I had planned, but suffice it to say I've migrated away from pulling squirrel skulls out of Mom's famous Squirrel and Dumpling Stew and sucking squirrel brains out of the dead squirrel's eye sockets (true story - Pop loved it! Used to make a big sucking sound every time sucked these squirrel brains out) to my current fav: HUMMUS
Poor Pop, he must be rolling over in his grave now knowing that I'm eating an ARAB dish. Mom too. I loved both of my parents (Mom more than Pop) but both were brainwashed, conspiracy Fox News addicts. They would never eat one of THOSE dishes that the A-RABS ate. I'm eat hummus every day. I've been eating hummus every day for about six years now.
So how did I come upon Hummus? As regular followers of this blog know I work part-time at a
About six years ago, after one such event I was helping my co-worker Sandi (who was the event coordinator) to clean up after the event. As so often happens, there were left overs.
LEFTOVERS! I LOVE LEFTOVERS!
She showed me this one huge bowl of a pale, tan mush. I said "What's that?" She said "Hummus" I said "What's that?" She repeated herself "Hummus." I said "I don't know what hummus is. I've never heard of it." She asked me "How old are you?" (I was 66 at the time, old enough to know better but still attractively ignorant as I am today - he said tongue in cheek - don't always take everything I say seriously folks in this blog - lighten up)
She said "Taste it!" I eyed the light tan mush that reminded me of cat poo and tentatively dipped my forefinger into the bowl and deposited about a half teaspoonful on my finger with I "put the plane in the hanger" in my mouth.
Hmmmmm . . . . good! I like! Thus folks, that evening, I was converted to hummus.
Now most folks use hummus as a dip. That's fine but what I use hummus for is to slather it on a wrap, sprinkle it with feta cheese (another Arab food, oh how my parents' must be twirling in their final resting places) and roll it up, cut it in half and have my hummus wrap with homemade soup for lunch . . . . every day. Yes you read that right folks. . . . EVERY DAY.
But I had a problem, I could only buy hummus in the little "dip" packages in the local supermarket Food Lion. Quite an expensive proposition if I'm eating a hummus wrap every day. Fortunately I found that the wholesale store in Millsboro (B.J.'s) offers industrial sized hummus. Thus my regular forays to B.J.'s were started by my addiction for hummus.
Oh this blog posting is going on a lot longer than I intended. I'll wrap up this sordid tale now. Yesterday I decided to make my own hummus. I was inspired by my friend Pat who makes his own hummus all the time. He just whips up a batch, thinks nothing of it. So, thusly inspired I got the ingredients and MADE IT.
Guess what folks? IT WAS DELICIOUS! WOW! Better than store made. And so simple to make. Well, sort of. You have to put all the ingredients in a blender and the consistency is sort of like cement, especially getting it out of the mixer. My hummus recipe isn't a smooth and creamy as the store bought but man oh man, is it ever tasty.
Here's the recipe:
You Will Need
- One 15-ounce can (425 grams) chickpeas, also called garbanzo beans
- 1/4 cup (59 ml) fresh lemon juice, about 1 large lemon
- 1/4 cup (59 ml) tahini (we used Krinos)
- Half of a large garlic clove, minced
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for serving
- 1/2 to 1 teaspoon kosher salt, depending on taste
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 2 to 3 tablespoons water
- Dash of ground paprika for serving
So there you go folks. Chickpeas, lemon juice, tahini (ground sesame seed), garlic, kosher salt, olive oil, cumin and water. Simple . . . . and delicious.
Sorry B.J.'s, I make my own hummus from now on. Again, just another example of what I make homemade is way better than anything I can find and buy in the store or restaurants.
My red skin potato salad is to die for.
