Hummus with Olive Oil Chips

Every Tuesday night some of my neighbors come over (mainly Jake and Sarah), Cory, my housemates, and I all crowd around the television and watch LOST.  Now, I don't watch LOST.  I never have, but now I probably will.  Due to the fact that is it on every Tuesday night, and I always home, I began watching it (in its final season).  And it's in my basic instinct whenever there is a large gathering of people, I feel like I must feed them.  Now every Tuesday night - I feed them.

Two weeks ago I made the dinner "Middle Eastern/Greek" themed.  I made my tried and true Spanakopita recipe, but I thought they might want something else - Hummus and chips.  I'm always so shocked when people try homemade hummus for the first time (it's always so much better) and then when I told them how easy it is, they are even more shocked.  I also felt that it would be appropriate to dip homemade chips in my homemade hummus.  The chips were so easy to make and it made a pretty large batch - enough to feed my friends and co-workers when I brought them into The Environment Report the next day.

Hummus

Ingredients:

• 22 oz chickpeas, canned
• 1 cup tahini paste
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 6-8 cloves of garlic, minced
• Extra virgin olive oil, to serve
• Trader Joe's Everyday Seasoning, to serve (optional)

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, add the tahini paste, water and lemon juice and mix well until it forms a uniform paste. Add the minced garlic to it and mix it well.
2. Now add the chickpea paste to the tahini sauce a little at a time, making sure everything gets incorporated evenly.
3. In a plate, spoon the hummus and create a canal with the back of the spoon to hold the olive oil, as seen in the photograph.
4. Sprinkle with sumac and serve with crackers.

Olive Oil Crackers

Adapted from: The Purple Foodie

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ cup water
• ¼ cup olive oil
• Freshly ground pepper (I used a mix of black, white and pink!)
• Sea salt to taste
• Coarse sea salt for garnish (I used pink Himalayan salt)
• More olive oil for brushing

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 220C.
2. In a large bowl, or the bowl of a Kitchen Aid add the flour baking powder, water, olive oil, salt and pepper. Knead the dough for 5-6 minutes until it all comes together.
3. Make walnut sized balls and roll them out as thinly as you can into long, oval shapes.
4. Place the rolled out crackers on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and brush with olive oil.
5. Bake for 5-6 minutes, or until the crackers are golden brown in color (I had to bake mine for about 10 minutes - but that's because my oven is kinda finicky)
6. Serve with the hummus!