Hello from this dreamy plate of hummus

The first thing I cooked this year was a hummus bowl with freshly baked pita bread. The inspiration for this was two-fold: 1) the arrival of, in my humble opinion, the best cookbook of 2020 (Cool Beans by Joe Yonan) and 2) the worst canker sore of my life.

I entered into 2021 with a feeling of cautious optimism. A feeling that ebbed quickly as I read the daily news and was forced to submit to a diet of cous cous and frozen peas to avoid searing pain. [Watch your back, BRAT diet, the cous cous & pea diet is one to watch!]

It didn’t help that weeks previous, I had ordered a special delivery of spices from SpiceWalla & Curio, as well as some new cookbooks as a little Merry-Christmas-to-me that finally arrived. What I had hoped would be a jumpstart to some fun cooking projects ended up instead being a reminder of all the things I couldn’t eat.

Cool Beans was one such reminder. Flipping through its pages, I’ve never felt like a cookbook was made for me as much of this one. (And, given my present pain, it was taunting me so ruthlessly.) I desperately searched for one recipe, any recipe, that would be gentle on my mouth. Enter this hummus bowl.

The recipe that this creation was loosely based off was a Roasted Beet Hummus Bowl with Turmeric Tahini and Peanut Dukkah. The photo featured a fluffy, dare I say- soothing - bowl of hummus drizzled with a golden streak of healing turmeric tahini and tender candy-striped beets. This could work.

So I jumped in. I confited cloves of garlic in olive oil. I pureed still-warm Rancho Grande chickpeas, toasted tahini, the tender cooked garlic, lemon juice, salt, and chickpea cooking liquid until it turned into fluff. I roasted beets in their skins, and peeled them with forks while still hot, burning my fingers & staining the cutting board in the process. I sauteed swiss chard in some of the leftover garlic oil. I crushed roasted peanuts & Elmendorf Everything Spice from Curio in my mortar & pestle. And I made pita bread from a random recipe on the internet I couldn’t find again if I tried, eventually having to crank up my oven to max heat when they didn’t puff up. (And celebrated when they finally did!)

While I can’t say that what I ultimately created was true to the recipe, nor was it completely bearable to eat (the lemon & crunchy peanuts, while delicious, were a little overly ambitious for the phase of healing I was in), I can say that while creating (and eating) this meal, I was a little more optimistic about this year. Just a little.

I have some hopes for this space: to document tasty things I make to supplement my not-so-great memory, to further my plant based & bean agenda, and to have a creative outlet. But my number one goal is to hopefully carry on in the spirit of this hummus bowl - to create a place that can be a balm for what I’m convinced will be another tough year.

Welcome & hello.