Home Made

For breakfast I baked myself a Plum pie (Waehe) and for lunch - and dinner I made myself Humus for the first time since I was a teen, many decades ago. I have been buying so much Humus of  late from Trader Joe's, our finest and maybe most affordable grocery store, I figure it's time to apply myself and attempt to make it from scratch myself. 

It was not that easy to find Garbanzo beans which surprised me, but not being big on eating beans in general, it's a section in the grocery store I too often ignore, I let it slide. I found the beans at our local exotic Ziggy market. The recipes on line all started out with canned beans, how offensive and totally unacceptable. I am sure I did not spend enough time in research, or would have found more natural methods of making Humus. As it was, I ditched the on-line info anyhow, but soaked my beans for 2 days, until they almost started to sprout and it seemed time to get at it. Can't be too difficult, can it? The question first was if the sprouted beans really need to be cooked after  such a long soak? I am not sure, but in the end I put them on a very slow boil for 2 hours. The smell that emanated after a while was oddly familiar, yes, I have done this before. I managed miraculously without burning one single bean.

In to the blender: The juice of 2 lemons, more might have been better, a bit of Olive oil, freshly ground Black Pepper, several dashes of Cayenne, a piece of Hatch Green Chile (others might have added several at one time) Garlic, lots of Parsley, a bit of Brewer's Yeast, a bit of Wheat Germ, Braggs, a few pinches of Celtic salt, one batch with tomatoes and one without. All blended after which beans are added to the right consistency. The mixture lends itself to experimentation. More lemons, more parsley, more and different spices might all be desirable. But it is doable even for me who tends to burn water and often does not want to bother with food preparations.

2 cups of dry beans made so much I hope the Humus lends itself to freezing? It will sit up there in the frost among my apple - and crabapple sauce, the cooked down pears and the bright green Salsa. 

Home made cooking, a source of unexpected pride and joy.