Saturday, September 22, 2007

Rawified hummous & other news


I've posted several times before about how much I love sprouting- anything from lentils to quinoa to wheatberries to lima beans. My absolute favorite, though, has got to be chickpea sprouts. They're just DIVINE. The taste is decidedly raw and different from cooked chickpeas, but has its own appeal.

Anyways, I had a jar of sprouted chickpeas kicking around and decided to make a special raw hummus. Mmm! I've also got two Lebanese friends, so I packed up a little container to bring to school for them to try. (I brought along some pita bread for dipping, too!)
The verdict? They liked it! It does have a different flavour with sprouted chickpeas vs. cooked, but this hummus is addictive all the same.

What went into this hummus, you ask? Here are some rough estimations:

1/2 cup sprouted chickpeas
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 1/2 tsp olive oil
2 tsp water
1 tbsp fresh parsley
1 small clove of garlic, very finely chopped

It had a tuna-salad-esque texture, so next time I will probably add more olive oil/water to thin it out. Or, I'll take a totally different direction and add celery & kelp, and call it a faux tuna salad!


In other news, my dad's grapes are in! See, every year, he buys dozens of 35-pound crates of grapes and makes his own wine. It's really a neat process, from the squishing and pressing and siphoning and everything else that he does. This year, he's bought Shiraz and Merlot grapes, but also got a crate of Thompson seedless just for eating:

Mmm, BEST GRAPES EVER! They're remarkably sweet but still have a good dose of grape-y flavour.



Also, my mom's friend Shami has lent us two neat Indian cookbooks:
I'm really excited to try out some of the recipes in them! There are a few neat flatbread recipes, as well as a handful of intriguing daals. As for the ones containing meat and/or dairy, they look mostly veganizable, so I'll have fun doing that!

Yay for the weekend, and yay for finishing most of my homework already! :)

5 comments:

Anardana said...

That's cool that you were on his site! and yeah, you should check out those buns from President's Choice. They're called "Burger First".
As for sprouting, I'm intimidated!! What containers do you sprout in? What is your no-fail technique?

Teresa said...

That's awesome that you're so into sprouting. I've been tinkering around with the idea for awhile, but am not sure if I'd be any good at it. I'm so intimidated and afraid of messing it up. Where do you get your seeds from? And what would suggest as something for a beginner to sprout?

The hummus looks awesome. And how cool that your dad makes wine! Yay on the homework.

Anonymous said...

I've never tried sprouted hummus. When I was a kid my mum would sprout all kinds of seeds and we'd put them on sandwiches. I want to get to doing that. it's so good!

Peggy said...

Thanks for the comments!

Here's how I sprout, in a nutshell:
-soak beans/grains in a jar overnight
-drain & rinse & drain
-rinse & drain 2-3 times a day for the next few days, until my little sproutsies are done!

It's really, really quite easy.

I use a plain old mason jar, either with a screen lid my dad made for me or, alternatively, I won't use a lid and keep the jar upside down on a paper towel

You can buy special sprouting seeds (for radish, alfalfa, broccoli etc), but I use plain old dried beans, lentils, and grains- even quinoa!

I'd say that lentils are fairly easy- they don't take long and have a lovely flavour.

( I should do a special sprouting post! I'll have one coming up in the next two weeks or so. :D)

bazu said...

Ok, I need to remind myself to sprout- it's been too long!