May 24-25 Beet Hummus

May 24     Indian spiced chicken burgers with tzatziki and pasta/greek salad
May 25    Cold Dinner of beet hummus, tzatziki, pita, cheese


  Ah, a new chapter in this endeavour and a new challenge as I admit something I probably would rather not admit about myself. As adventurous as I am with my eating, I am also a real creature of habit, as is The Kid. When I was a child, I would eat the exact same breakfast every morning for months on end. Then, without warning to my poor mother, I would wake up and announce that today I would like to have something else and I would go on to eat THAT every single morning for months on end. Little Shack does this too - the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.




  Now that Shack is firmly ensconced in his movie and on a week of late afternoon/evenings, I realize that what I really want to do is make a giant greek salad with pasta and just eat that every night for dinner until it's gone and I know that The Kid would also be just fine with that. After we finish that off, maybe we would have cold soba noodles with some tofu and whatever veggies are on hand for the next four or five nights. Pasta with raw tomato, olive oil and boccacini could make us both happy every night for a solid week.

Clearly, I am not allowed to this and I am going to have make something different for just the two of us every night for the next 4 months! Doh!

One of our favourite warm weather meals is a mish mash of dips, some sort of bread, cheeses, maybe some salad and a bit of grilled meat or leftover grilled veggies. I will have to get very creative to keep this meal fresh and new all summer and this week I start by making beet hummus. I saw this delicious picture of beet hummus on tastespotting and was totally inspired and since we love beets and we love hummus, it was a no brainer.
 It's also a perfect choice since we have to rush right back to school at 5:45 so that Little Shack and his classmates can present their speeches about ways that we can all work to make the world a better place. Our little school is an active Me to We school and they do a ton of fund raising so that they can pay to have a school built in Haiti through the Free the Children organization(they are only about $1200 away from their end goal, which is impressive considering there are under 20 students involved). When I was his age, I think my speech was about Canada Geese or the manufacturing of polyester or something like that.
The world has already become a better place, no?

Beet Hummus
adapted from Lentil Breakdown

about 1 cup of cooked, cooled cubed beets
1 540 ml (19 oz) can of chickpeas
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2-4 tbls tahini
juice of one lemon
1 tsp cumin
good pinch kosher salt
1/4 cup olive oil

Put all of  your ingredients into a food processor and whiz it up. Check for salt level, spices and texture. Some people really like a creamy hummus and others like it thicker and a bit chunky. You can thin it out with more olive oil or just a drizzle of water - obviously olive oil is going to make it tastier but it's already a healthy amount of oil, so it's up to you.