It All Started with Hummus
My friend David sent me a no-fail hummus recipe and I had to give it a try. Spoiler alert: I didn’t follow the directions 100% and while it wasn’t a fail, it needs work. Yes, maybe I will follow the recipe next time. What?? You’re putting our entire brand at stake for the sake of trying to improve a not-really-failed recipe??? How could you?
Rei was busy with lord knows what so it was up to me yet again to come up with the menu. I remembered a lamb and hummus dish I ate weekly while I was pregnant with Rei 16 years ago and thought it would be fun to try to recreate, not for sentimental reasons but because it sounded so good.
I found recipes for spiced lamb, tzatziki, and thought this would go great with the hummus in a pita with diced tomatoes and sliced red onions. I put the grocery list together, went to my tennis match, and came home to cook with Rei.
Rei kept me company at the counter while I got started on the hummus which required rinsing and draining before putting them in a pot with water and baking soda. This is where I went wrong. I accidentally opened two cans of chickpeas and should have just done one. I doubled everything but the food processor struggled with all of this. You know, you could have just used one can and put the other in the fridge to be used later…
After boiling for 20 minutes, they were plump and the skins were coming off as described by the recipe. I drained, rinsed in cold water, and set aside as I worked on the tzatziki and other ingredients for the hummus. Note: I talked to David a few days ago and he has been refining the recipe including boiling for 8–10 minutes and removing the skins.
Rei was preparing their sourdough loaves while I tried not to squeeze lemon juice on them. I sliced up the red onions and diced the tomatoes. I think I should have pickled the onions or something because they were good but had a little too much bite. Yeah. Note for next time.
The hummus and the tzatziki both needed lemon juice and Zeke got two at the store (my instructions) but we needed more. Fortunately our neighbor has a tree and doesn’t mind if we take a few every now and then (we lost our beautiful Meyer lemon tree to oak root rot a number of years ago…all of the houses on our block had Meyer lemon trees planted when the houses were built in the 50s). Now I want to make lemon bars or lemon meringue pie, thanks.
I added the lemon juice, salt and garlic to the food processor and ran it to cut the garlic into even smaller pieces. I don’t think it worked but that wasn’t the problem. I left that to sit for 10 minutes while I went back to the tzatziki. There wasn’t enough stuff in the food processor, plus you used the wrong blade?? That’s the one for doughs and stuff?
This is amazingly easy. I grated 2 garlic cloves into the bottom of the bowl, added 1/4 teaspoon of salt and let that sit for a minute while I peeled and cut the cucumber into halves (lengthwise). I scraped out the seeds and then diced the cucumber.
The recipe called for grating the cucumber and then squeezing out the excess liquid. I happen to like bigger chunks of cucumber in my tzatziki (it’s a texture thing) and it’s less work. I added a cup of Greek yogurt, 1 TBS of lemon juice, 1 TBS olive oil, and black pepper before mixing it up. I set that aside to meld as we prepped the rest of dinner.
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Tasting note: this was really good although it was a little garlicky. I will do one garlic clove next time or let sit longer in the fridge.
As the garlic and lemon juice were merging for the hummus and the tzatziki flavors were chilling and blending on their own, I got started on the lamb. I chopped up one yellow onion and sauteed in some olive oil until soft (2–3 minutes).
I added about a pound of ground lamb and the spices before breaking into smaller pieces with the wooden spoon. I used 1 tsp each of ground cumin, ground coriander, salt, and ground paprika. I added 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon and black pepper. Here’s where I input another comment about how I wasn’t paying attention during this time and have no way to fact check what you were doing, so theoretically you could have put in anything you wanted. What if you put in the water from the flower vases? Or some children’s tears from that little bottle you have under your pillow? Or even something weird like salt? It’s a big bottle of tears thank you very much.
This took about 4 minutes to cook. I took the pan off heat, covered it , and moved it to a back burner to wait for the rest of the meal to be complete.
Zeke set the table and put the pita bread in a basket on the table along with the tomatoes and onions as I finished the hummus.
I added tahini to the food processor. This stuff stinks. I am not a fan but if it can help me make the best hummus ever, I am going to give it a try. I may try to make my own. Wait, do you mean it stinks literally in that it smells bad? Or figuratively in that it is a pain to work with? Good question and the answer is, both.
It was pretty thick so I added some ice water, some more lemon juice, some more olive oil, and some more salt.
It was still pretty bland when we sat down to eat but since the tzatziki was a little garlicky, they offset each other quite well. I drizzled some olive oil and salt on top along with some chopped parsley before serving.
This was Rei’s masterpiece: hummus, lamb, tomatoes, red onions, tzatziki, and parsley. Pretty rad if you ask me.
And these were mine right before they fell over and fell apart. They were really good and we will be making this again. This is a perfect midweek meal. if you don’t want to make your own hummus (or don’t have time), you can buy it. I am going to try to make it again and have it stocked in the fridge for meals like this or veggies and dip. I still don’t get how they managed to stay up long enough for you to get a picture, but the world works in mysterious ways sometimes. Magic.
Rei took the fixings for lunch today. Rei, how was it cold and on the second day? Did any of the flavors get even better? I am going to see if there’s anything left for a late lunch for me. Then I need to decide on tonight’s menu so your dad can get to the store when he gets home from work.
It was fine cold. I ended up putting the fillings in one container and taking the pita separately so I could assemble at lunch. If there’s one thing I despise, it’s soggy bread. If I somehow met a genie and had three wishes to use however I please, you can bet your best knee-high stockings and shiniest bottle caps I’m using all of them to eradicate soggy bread from this dimension and all others. Fight me.
Anyways, dinner was good, lunch was good, and we are vibing. Until next time, ciao, and have a polwrunscux day!
Rei and Terri 😜
