Well, Jeffrey’s high school graduation, his Eagle Scout Court of Honor, his long-weekend college orientation, and the 4th of July are now behind us. It’s been a VERY hectic past couple of weeks. Now that all of these distractions have come to a close, and the guests have flown back home, I now have a little free time to focus on what I enjoy doing: creating recipes. That being said, I have been cooking a TON of food these past few weeks for the above occasions, it’s just that I haven’t had the ability to take the time to measure out all of my ingredients (which I hate doing!), take pictures of each of the steps (which I enjoy doing!), and posting said results.
Before I get to the meat of today’s post: hummus, I thought I’d share some photos of a few of our 4th of July guests: Maine lobsters. The plan was to host an old-fashioned New England lobster boil/BBQ at our house in the late afternoon, then watch the fireworks from our front deck.
The day before the 4th I drove over to one of my go-to Asian markets in Irvine to gather up some crustaceans. When I peered into the lobster tank, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The lobsters in there were ginormous! There wasn’t a lobster in the tank that was under 5 lbs. These lobsters could go toe-to-toe with Godzilla (seeing that I was in an Asian market “Godzirra” was the first monster that popped into my head..sorry, I couldn’t resist). My intention was to buy a 1 pounder for each person, so I asked the fish counter guy if he could give their other store a jingle. It was the same story there, too, no crustacean under 5 pounds; therefore, I left the store with a gaggle of gargantuan lobsters.

The biggest critter in the bunch.

Striking a jiu jitsu pose!

Scaring the bejesus out of the dog.
Let’s get back to the hummus. Last night Monica and I were alone for dinner and we both wanted something quick, easy, healthy, and salad like. Since I had just replenished my tahini supply, we opted for hummus. I could literally live on hummus. Here’s what you’ll need for ingredients.
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 can of garbanzo beans (a.k.a chickpeas). Reserve 1/2 cup of the bean liquid to add to the blender.
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- A generous pinch of Espelette pepper
- 2 tbsp of tahini
- 3 sun dried tomatoes (packed in EVOO)
- 1 tbsp of EVOO
- The juice from 2 large lemons
Add all of your ingredients to the blender.
You can see the size of the three sun dried tomatoes on top. You could add, or deduct, one to two depending upon your affinity for sun dried toms.
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Blend until smooth and creamy.
While my hummus was blending, I began to warm up some garlic naan that I had purchased at Trader Joe’s. You could use pita bread or whatever floats your boat.

I minced one shallot, diced a Persian cucumber (a seedless cuke), chopped up an heirloom tomato, and made a basil chiffonade (basil leaves cut into long, thin strips) with about 4 leaves. I put some hummus in a bowl and sprinkled some Maldon sea salt flakes over the top, gave it a drizzle of EVOO, and threw a pinch more of Esplette pepper.
I then topped the hummus with some shallot, cucumber, tomato, and the basil. If I had some feta cheese I would have added some feta crumbles, too. I placed the remaining cucumber and tomato on the platter with the sliced naan. It was Über healthy and Über delicious!

Eat well!
April
“Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.” ~ Orson Welles