Hummus

a recipe, and a sandwich to put it on

Put all the ingredients in a food processor. Blend it until it's as smooth as you like it. I like mine very smooth. If it's too thick, add water a tablespoon at a time until it reaches the consistency you want. Bear in mind that it will thicken as it sits in the fridge.

The beauty of this recipe is how easy it is to customize it to get precisely the results you want. If you're stranger than me and you like a texture to your hummus, don't blend it as long. If you want more garlic bite to it, add more! You can used canned beans (I used two 15 oz cans for my batch because I don't yet have bulk chick peas to cook up myself.)

If you don't need as much as this recipe makes then cut the batch in half.

And no, I don't know precisely how much this recipe makes because I never measure it afterwords, I just scoop it into a fridge container and use it as needed. If I had to guess I'd say it probably makes about 3.5 cups of it.

The hummus pictured in this post lacks the parsley because of my crazy bug infestation which, frankly, rarely happens to my parsley. I don't even know exactly what they are.

The reason I like this hummus so much more than most I've tasted is that it has a clear fresh flavor which is partly from the lemon and partly from the fresh parsley. I dislike hummus mixes immensely. I don't much care for most store bought tubs of it either. Most of them are bland, or grainy, or include way too much garlic. I like this one for its balance.

A quick tutorial

First you must toast your bread. Generally speaking I don't toast my bread for sandwiches because the toasty bread rips up the inside of my mouth. But some sandwiches call out to be toasted, and this is one of them. Use good bread. It doesn't have to be fancy, but let it be one with some character and flavor. Mine is from a local company that makes excellent sliced bread called Piontek. There's no weird things in it to make it last longer. And it can't tap dance.

Spread each side with hummus. Resist the temptation to pile it in high peaks because if you do then you will end up wearing it as it explodes out of your bread. That's not pretty. Or dignified.

Sprinkle a bucket some crumbled feta on each side. If you're vegan, omit the cheese. The next step will show you why, if you don't like (or can't) eat cheese you will not be sorry to make this sandwich. I personally can't resist any occasion to use feta.

Now cut two juicy slices of an heirloom tomato and put them in the middle. It is essential that you use a tomato that you grew, or got from someone who grew it near you. It is essential that it be a tasty variety. It is essential that you enjoy how it looks sliced for a few moments because tomato season for most of us is a short period of bliss.

Now you have a sandwich that has a great deal of wholesome protein, grains, and vegetable (fruit) all in one go. Aren't you going to take a bite now? What are you waiting for? Let me just warn you that if you leave it there much longer I will grab it for myself.

This is what I had for breakfast this morning and just moments ago for dinner. I had other dinner plans but as this was so stinking good and I thought about it off and on all day long I couldn't think of any reason to have something different while I still have the supplies for more of this.

Possible variations:

Instead of using sliced bread make an open-faced fresh pita sandwich.

Add lettuce to the sandwich.

Use provolone cheese instead of feta.

Add some roasted eggplant rounds.