Hummus is good for so many reasons.  First, it’s good for you.  Second, it’s really easy (and fairly economical) to make.  Third, you can add all kinds of delicious stuff to it to spice it up if you get bored with the standard.  For these hummus varieties, I added some beets to one and a few roasted red peppers to the second batch.

Can you guess which batch had the beets?

Take your pick!

You can kind of make hummus your own.  There’s a ton of recipes out there.  For me though, a hummus dish has to have a few things in it:

- Chickpeas
- Tahini Paste
- Olive oil
- Garlic
- Lemon

Helpful Equipment for Hummus:
- Blender or
- Food Processor

After that you can go a bit crazy with ingredients.  This first hummus I made is pretty standard and you can buy it in your grocery store.  It’s better (and I think cheaper) if it’s homemade!

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus (Adapted pretty seriously from a Pinch My Salt Recipe)

- 1 can (16 ounces) chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed
- 2 red peppers, roasted, peeled and sliced
- 1/8 of a red onion, diced
- 2 Tablespoons Tahini
- 1 cloves garlic
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil (or more depending on how creamy you like your hummus)
- 1 Teaspoon honey (optional)
- 1 Teaspoon cumin (optional)
- 1/2 Teaspoon sriracha (optional)
- Salt and pepper to taste

Roasting the Peppers. The only hard part about this recipe is roasting the peppers (it’s not that hard people).  You can buy jarred roasted peppers that will work perfectly for this.  If you want to do some DIY peppers though, just crank up your gas stove to high heat and carefully set the papers on the burner!

And yes, this will only work with gas.

Gas stoves rock.

Turn them with a good pair of metal tongs every 30 seconds or so to make sure they are evenly roasted on all sides.  They’ll probably take about 5 minutes to get nice and charred.  They should be almost completely black when they come off.

Charred goodness.

Put your peppers in a bowl and cover them with plastic wrap.  The heat from the peppers will steam off the skin so it’s easy to remove.  Let them sit, covered, for about 10 minutes before trying to peel them.

When peeling the peppers, gently pull off the skin.  It should come off really easily.  It’s okay if you don’t get it all.  I don’t like to wash my peppers because it washes away all the flavor, but if for some reason you wanted them to be perfectly clean, then wash them I guess.

Next cut out the seeds and roughly chop them up.  Add everything to your blender or food processor!

Lots of flavor in there.

Note that if you’re using a blender, it’s going to be slow going.  Hummus just isn’t quite liquid enough to blend perfectly, but you can use a spoon to stir up the ingredients or add a bit more olive oil to get a nicely blended result.

This took me a few minutes and a few stirs… not a lot of work for a lot of hummus.

Good with all kinds of stuff.

The Beet Variety.  The first time I saw this I knew I had to try it right away.  The original recipe didn’t have any chickpeas in it though so I modified it because, to me, without chickpeas it’s not really a hummus.

Beet Hummus (Adapted from a Simply Recipes version)

- 4 medium sided beets, boiled, peeled, cubed
- 1 can (16 ounces) chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 2 Tablespoons Tahini
- 2 lemons, zest and juice
- 1 clove garlic
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1 Tablespoon ground cumin
- Salt and pepper to taste

Besides the beets, I think the lemon zest and juice is the most important part of this recipe.  The citrus flavor it adds is fantastic.  You’ll need a good microplane zester though for the zesting part.

Prepping the beets. Like with the roasted peppers, the prep of the beets is the only hard part really.  Start with 4 medium-large beets.  No need to scrub them or anything like that but trim off any stems that are attached.

Dirty things.

Boil them for about 30 minutes until they are very tender.  Then drain them and let them cool a bit.  You should be able to very easily pierce them with a fork or knife.

Once they’re slightly cool, peel the beets and cube them up!  And yes… they will stain your hands.  It can’t be helped.

Not pictured: My red hands

Once your beets are ready, stuff everything in the blender and it’s the same story as the red pepper version.

Blend it up!

Just pulse up everything until it’s nice and smooth.  The end result will be very colorful!

Umm... can you say colorful?!

Making Pita Chips. You could serve either of these with a variety of things.  Cucumbers with the beet hummus was very tasty and the red pepper hummus goes great on a sandwich or on some carrots.

Pita chips, however, go pretty well with both versions.  You can definitely buy these at the store, but you’ll get more bang for your buck if you make them from fresh pita which is a lot cheaper.

Just take your pita, cut it into sixths, and peel apart the layers.  So you end up with 12 chips per pita.  Then spread out all the pita chips on a baking sheet.  I can usually fit about 4 pita’s worth of chips on one sheet.

Sprinkle with a Tablespoon or two of olive oil and a pinch of salt!

Straight forward

Bake those for about 15 minutes at 350 degrees, turning once just to make sure they cook evenly.  Then let them cool and they should crisp up perfectly!

I liked both, but loved the red pepper.

The beet variety was interesting.  It had a pretty sweet flavor to it which was good, but I couldn’t eat a whole bunch of it.  Meanwhile, I could eat my own weight in the red pepper variety.  That’s just my personal tastes though as I thought both versions turned out really great.

You can store these in the fridge for a week without a problem or freeze them if you make sure to put them in an air-tight container and put a layer of plastic wrap on the surface of the hummus so it doesn’t get a film on it.

Do you have a favor hummus flavor?  Leave a comment!

Sweet potato hummus tastes totally different than your normal old hummus.  It’s a bit sweet but still has that awesome sesame taste to it.  It also has plenty of spice which really makes the dish in my opinion.

Shockingly delicious.

This recipe makes a good amount of hummus.  You may want to double it though if you are expecting more than 10 people.  I guarantee that it will be pretty popular.

As an aside, you obviously don’t have to wait for a party to make this stuff.  I made up a batch for this post and even used it on sandwiches throughout the week.  Delicious.

Sweet Potato Hummus

- 5 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
- 1/2 Cup Tahini
- 3/4 Cup olive oil
- 1 Tablespoon cumin
- 2 Teaspoons Kosher salt
- 1/2 – 1 Teaspoon of cayenne depending on your heat desires
- 1 Teaspoon black pepper
- 1 lemon, juice only
- Pitas, cut into chips (I would guess that 12 would get you through the whole amount of hummus)

Roasting the potatoes. Before we blend these guys up, we need to roast them.  This will soften them up, but also concentrate that awesome sweet potato flavor.  Cube them into 1-2 inch cubes after you peel them and sprinkle them with a bit of olive oil and salt.

Ready for the heat!

Into a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes.  Give them a toss every 10 minutes or so to make sure they are cooking evenly.  They should be almost caramelized and fork tender.

After about a 30 minute roast.

Making the hummus. Add all your potatoes to a blender or food processor along with your Tahini and olive oil.  Then buzz it up!  If you are using a blender you’ll probably have to stop and stir it after 10 seconds or so as it is really thick.

I've been using the blender a lot lately...

Tahini is a really important ingredient in any hummus but it gives a definite boost to this stuff.  Without this, the sweet potatoes would be way too sweet I think.

Don't forget the sesame!

Adding the spices. If your blender is running smoothly you can add all your spices and lemon juice right in.  My blender was struggling a bit because those potatoes were tough to get to cooperate.

So once I had the right texture, I put my hummus in a bowl and then added all my spices.

You'll want these also.

Meanwhile, don’t forget about your pitas!  Chop them up into squares and bake them with just a touch of olive oil.  They should crisp up after about 10 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Yes. I know you can buy pita chips and feel free to do so.  If you want some bang for your buck though, making them is the way to go.  Since you have the oven on anyway from roasting, it makes sense.

Couldn't be easier.

Then just, ya know, eat it.

Eat me!

A very simple appetizer that keeps really well.  In fact, the flavors really intensify after a day or two in the fridge.  This is a party pleaser. I know because I was pleased at a party where it was served!

Give it a shot!

After my last few posts, I got an email from a friend of mine, Julie (Hi Julie!). Julie has a problem of accumulating items in her pantry that she doesn’t know what to do with.

This was the list she sent me:

artichoke hearts
canned pumpkin
garbanzo beans
macadamia oil
avocado oil
basil dipping oil
chili paste
fish sauce
chopped spinach

Nine items. I thought about it for about two minutes before I concluded that it would be impossible to make one dish using all of these ingredients. At least it would be impossible to make one edible dish.

I did find a way to use all of them though. Let’s pick the low hanging fruit first.

Canned pumpkin – Honestly, I would just hide this bad boy until Thanksgiving next year and then make a good pumpkin pie. Cooking for Engineers has one of the best pumpkin pie recipes I’ve seen.

If you wanted to make something sooner though, I would recommend something curried. Pumpkin and curry go really well together. Maybe try this pumpkin curry soup.

Chopped Spinach – Considering you emailed me this list awhile ago, if you still have this spinach throw it out. It will be a bag of mush by now. If you have a new bag of chopped spinach, I recommend making a salad and sprinkling one of those lovely oils you have over the top (avocado sounds really good).

Basil Dipping Oil – Make this bread or this bread. Take the next bus to Delicioustown.

Macadamia Oil – This could also be used as a dipping oil. Personally though, I would use this stuff for a stir fry. Check out the recipe list at the oddly named site: Mac-nut-oil.com.

Avocado Oil – I almost bought some of this just so I could make this, but I would try making a simple bruschetta. Instead of olive oil though, use avocado oil. BAM. Guacamole bruschetta.

Artichokes and Garbanzo Beans

Two of the things on the list immediately called out to me:

Made for each other.

Homemade hummus is one of my favorite things. It is quick and easy to whip up, stores for a long time, and is packed with flavor. Traditionally, hummus has Tahini paste in it. I left it out of this recipe though and it was still delicious.

The reason why I left it out was because the whole idea of these posts is to get rid of stuff. It’s not much of a trade off to get rid of some artichokes and chick peas if you end up with a huge can of Tahini paste that you don’t know what to do with.

That said, we do need to add some flavors to this:

I consider these pretty common ingredients

This is the recipe I ended up with:

Artichoke Hummus

1 Can Garbanzo Beans
6 ounces artichoke hearts
3 cloves garlic (tone it down if you don’t love garlic)
1/2 Teaspoon red pepper
1 lemon, juice only
2 Tablespoons olive oil
Pinch of salt and pepper

Basically you just combine all of this stuff in a food processor.

Ready for blending

Pulse this for a few seconds until it forms a smooth paste. Add a bit more olive oil if needed.

Serve the end result with pita.

Healthy snack.

I really liked this and have been snacking on it for a few days now. The Macheesmo taste-tester was not in love with it. She didn’t like the artichoke/chickpea combo. It definitely tastes different than normal hummus, but I enjoyed it.

Also, I found that it is better on day two or three when the flavors have had time to really meld.

So we have knocked off seven of our nine ingredients. We are left with fish sauce and chili paste. I tried a few different things with these two ingredients. I tried a salad dressing (meh.) and basting some chicken wings (NO!). Try number three gave me something good though: Thai Beef Skewers.

Fish Sauce and Chili Paste

To our two ingredients, we are going to need to add some other flavors to get were we want to be.

Marinade ingredients

Did you notice my screw up? Julie had chili paste in her pantry. I used chili sauce. For this marinade, I’m just looking for something a bit spicy, so I think you could sub them out without too much trouble.

Thai Beef Skewers
(I adapted my recipe from this one. Thanks @ekerekes for the link.)

1 pound sirloin, cut into strips
2 Cloves garlic, chopped
2 Tablespoons fish sauce
2 Tablespoons sesame oil (maybe you could use macadamia oil?)
2 Tablespoons honey
1 Tablespoon chili sauce (I would use less chili paste. Maybe 1 Teaspoon depending on how hot you want it.)
Handful of cilantro, chopped
Pinch of salt and pepper

Mix up all your ingredients and add your sirloin.

Sweet sweet marinating meat.

Let this marinate for at least an hour. You could leave it overnight in the fridge.

I like to use wooden skewers. Always be sure to soak them in water because, ya know, wood burns.

Stabbed and ready for the oven.

Ideally, you would broil these guys for about 5 minutes. I don’t have a broiler that works so I baked mine at 450 for 5 minutes. Still delicious.

No need for a sauce on these guys.

So I think that pretty much covers it. These beef skewers were a real hit.

If you have an ingredient that you don’t know what to do with, or a pantry full of them… send me an email or leave a comment! If you wanted to be really cool, you could even include a photo of your pantry items.