April is a strange month. One day it is 80 degrees and you curse the fact that your high-rise apartment building still has the heat on full blast and it is almost impossible to sleep because it is hot and stuffy. The next day, you are getting caught in a downpour while waiting for the bus, with only a rain coat and no umbrella so that by the time the bus finally makes it to your stop, you are wet down to the lining of your dress pants and maybe even your underwear (TMI perhaps, but it totally happened).
Green City Market aches to have something more than storage potatoes and apples to offer but you get a little glimpse of the upcoming season in the form of spinach and maybe some pea greens. All this back-and-forth has made my motivation confused. One day I’m craving chili and the next a bowl of ice cream but in actuality, I haven’t wanted to cook anything. To top it off, my creativity zone has been crowded with things like letter pressed invitations, white dresses, and photographers. I promise that I won’t turn this blog into wedding central but I just wanted to link you to these ladies who will be creating our custom wedding invites and this guy who will be taking some awesome photos for us. This is a long way of saying, that I have had lots of other stuff going on and lately, cooking has felt like a necessity and not a hobby, but this hummus recipe has helped me get out of my funk.
You see, hummus is a very easy thing to make (and would be even easier with a full-sized food processor which I will eventually have in my kitchen) and tastes better than anything that you pick up in a tub at Trader Joe’s. Rinse a couple cans of chickpeas and throw them in a food processor with some tahini, lemon juice, lemon zest, garlic, salt, pepper and if you are feeling a little frisky, ground chipotle chili power. Hit the on button and drizzle in a little olive oil until it reaches the consistency you are looking for. Now you have a bowl full of delicious hummus that is just waiting to be stuffed into pita bread with that early spring spinach from Green City and tucked into a lunch box. Maybe it will help you get out of a cooking funk too.
Chipotle Hummus (printable recipe)
Recipe adapted from Simply Recipes
4 garlic cloves, minced and then smashed
2 15-oz cans of chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed
2/3 cup of tahini
2 large lemons, juiced and zested (about 1/3 cup of juice)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon of kosher or sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/8 to 1/2 teaspoon of ground chipotle powder (add a little as you go to get to the level of spice you are looking for)
In a food processor, combine the garlic, chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, water, and olive oil. Process until smooth. Add the salt, pepper and chipotle powder to taste.
Spoon into a bowl and serve with crackers, crudites or use as a spread on sandwiches or in pitas.
Whitney in Chicago 
i know whatcha mean – i have some chili in the freezer from a few weeks ago and i can’t decide if i want to eat it or not, but then i worry i missed my chance and it’s going to be warm early, which is good, but then i waste my chili. ugh. and i can’t decide what to cook either, or for that matter, what to wear!
on the other hand, this spring / summer is already shaping up to be better than last years’, so there is that!! good luck with the wedding planning!
DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELISH! I never realized how easy hummus is. I actually have all of those ingredients in my pantry right now – which is a first and a sign from the gods, I think.
So glad you’re using A&C for your invitayshes! They’re fantastic, but it sounds like you figured that out. 🙂
Hummus is SO expensive if you eat it in the mass quantities I do, so thanks for sharing this recipe…it’s so easy to make, there’s no excuse not to!
But I know what you mean about getting your groove back; if I hadn’t done all my spring cleaning this weekend, I wouldn’t have felt like cooking either. Have fun with wedding planning, though! At least there’s a big party at the end of all your hard work.
I’ve been wanting to make home-made hummus for a while now, but the last time I did it, I added WAY too much olive oil. I should try this recipe since I have all the ingredients, and it sounds great! Oh and sidenote-I keep thinking about you and your foot back in college. I have NO idea how you took a shower with your foot hanging out for that long, and you weren’t able to walk on it for that long. I can’t wait till this process is over. And it’s a relief to know your muscle in that one leg came back just fine.
I basically had to take baths for 6 weeks. It was pretty terrible. I lived alone at the time but the best story crutches story ever was as follows: I used to hop from my kitchen to the living room so that I could actually carry stuff. I guess the hopping caused the flow to shake and I knocked this glass jar off of my tv console and it shattered and I mean shattered all over the wood floor. I had to go ask two guys that I lived next door to come over and sweep up the mess because I couldn’t figure out a way to do it myself. Fast forward a week…I was hopping again on my good foot, barefoot, and managed to find a piece of glass that we missed. Now I am dripping blood from my “good foot” and I didn’t have my crutches in the room (stupid) and I was forced to scoot on my butt all the way across my apartment to get a bandaid and something to stop the bleeding. I seriously wish I had video footage because it was just so comical 🙂