After briefly browsing through the cookbook, I settled on making hummus. I have always liked hummus, and I figured it might make a nice substitution to my daily peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. The recipe is as follows:
1 can garbanzo beans, drained
¼ cup olive oil or vegetable oil
1 clove garlic, cut in half
2 tablespoons lemon juice
½ teaspoon salt
Fresh parsley
Pita bread wedges, crackers or raw vegetables
1. In blender or food processor, place bans, oil, garlic, lemon juice and salt. Cover and blend on high speed, stopping blender occasionally to scrape sides until uniform consistency.
2. Spoon into serving dish. Garnish with parsley. Serve with pit bread.
At first glance, the recipe seems easy enough; and for most people, it would be. I, however, am the exception. Sometimes completing the simplest processes seem to elude me, and often my boyfriend, Tyler, questions how I have made it so far in life when I can’t figure out how to turn the oven on. My problems with this recipe started before I began cooking. Wal-mart was out of some critical ingredients, but, surprisingly, I was so excited to make hummus that I decided to improvise. This was probably my first mistake. Wal-mart was out of garlic cloves, parsley, and pita bread. I decided to use minced garlic, skip the parsley all together, and use French bread. My second mistake was more due to my laziness than to Wal-mart’s incapability to keep common items in stock. After Wal-mart, my boyfriend and I decided to go back to his place rather than stop back and my house to pick up the cookbook. Having looked over the recipe, I thought I knew what I was doing. It turns out, however, that salt is a critical ingredient. I didn’t have it written down on my list since I didn’t need to buy any. So in addition to the missing parsley, pita bread, and fresh garlic, I forgot to put in the salt. With over half of the recipe being improvised, the hummus was less than desirable to put it politely, and definitely not a sufficient substitute for my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. My roommates, ever faithful in this endeavor of mine, tried to help me refine it, but we accidently ended up dumping about a ¼ of a cup of cayenne pepper into the hummus. After this disaster, I wondered what I was going to do with the other 3 cans of garbanzo beans that I brought in my zealous mood at Wal-mart.
I hear hummus is really good on bacon too. Since you don't like very spicy food I would omit the cayenne. It's just to hard to add it to small amounts of food. Try red pepper flakes (the things you put on pizza) for a milder flavor. Just add a little at a time and taste it as you go. Try it again, Bubs, you'll get it.
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