Healthy hummus recipe

This healthy hummus recipe makes such a wonderful dish on the side, or scooped into the avocado on a summer-salad in the photo above.

I think we all know a plain salad can be rather dry. Adding a vinaigrette of lemon juice, olive oil and some herbs is one way to make it more palatable. But even better is this wonderful garbanzo-bean dish. It also provides the protein we all need at every meal.

I want to share a little truth with you. I make this healthy hummus recipe at least twice a week, in only four-minutes. Really, it can be done. It costs six times as much to buy, and is not nearly as good.

This page was last updated on 23rd January, 2022.

Ingredients

There is always a proviso because some aforethought and preparation is needed.

• I am trying to get away from canned food, now that the evidence is coming out that the tins are lined with chemicals that cause malignancies. That means soaking a couple pounds of garbanzo beans overnight and, preferably pressure-cooking and freezing most of them.
• You need to find a source of tahini; it is a sesame-seed paste that you will get at your Greek or Turkish shop.
  
• You can use cumin from the spice-people, but freshly roasted is so much nicer, and it takes no time at all^[2].
  

So where do we start?

I always start with freshly-roasted cumin seeds which takes about two minutes. Do not burn them. The scent of the vapour produced alone makes it a worthwhile exercise. You then need to grind them; don't begrudge the time to make nuitritious choice foods.

Find a large packet of garbanzos; at least two-pounds. That Greek shop will probably have some, or tell you where to purchase them. They are cheap; the world's primary protein. They are also called chickpeas, and are my favourite legume after fresh green beans from the garden.

Tip your kilogram of chickpeas into a large pot and cover them generously with water overnight; they absorbe a huge amount of moisture. In the morning rinse them several times and do not pour that liquid on your potted plants. It contains a natural growth-inhibitor.

If you have not already got a stainless steel pressure cooker go out and buy one; they are one of the most labour-saving devices, reducing the time by two thirds.

Add a couple cups of boiling water, half a lemon, and bring them up to the maximum pressure for twenty-five minutes. Do not forget the safety device that stops you from opening the pot in a senior moment, and spreading the peas over the ceiling.

Once the pressure has dropped, rinse them thoroughly a couple times in cold-water, and freeze them in packets of say one and two cups. They are excellent too in any stew you are cooking up.

Lovely hummus recipe

A hummus recipe without all the preservatives is so delicious, but it goes off after three-days so do not make too much. I throw any excess into our low GI bread dough where it helps to slow the digestion of the starch in wheat to instant blood sugar; and it improves the flavour and the crumb too.

The slightly tedious part is over. You now have half a dozen packets of garbanzo-beans in the freezer; keep one out if you plan to make your first batch of our hummus recipe straight away.

At your spice-store purchase a fairly small packet of whole cumin seeds unless you are planning to get into this seriously; then a larger one.

I buy a pound at a time; the whole seeds keep, but once you roast and grind them they lose their flavour within a couple of weeks; it is called oxidation.

Tip a couple tablespoons of the seeds onto a large heavy-skillet and turn the temperature up on high; watch them because they will burn. Within two or three minutes, they will start to smoke, giving off the most divine fragrance that will waft through your whole kitchen and living room.

Switch off the heat and stir a few times. Once your cumin is nearly cool, pour it into your spice-blender and give it a whir. Store the fresh powder in a tightly sealed bottle in the fridge.

A funnel with a wide throat is useful.

Incidentally a teaspoon of cumin in your butternut soup recipe adds so much flavour; and a chunk of fresh-ginger.

So each time you make this natural hummus recipe you will need tahini and cumin from the refrigerator, actually I keep the ginger in there too.

choice foods

Are you ready to whirl? From here it takes only four minutes; all that donkey-work above will have to be repeated in a few months, depending on how often you make this delicious hummus recipe.

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This is one of the most divine, nourishing choice foods you can make. We all know it is time to reduce our red-meat consumption, and hummus is what we now have with our salads instead of ham, or cold beef.

Traditionally, it is covered in olive oil and sprinkled with paprika powder. It looks pretty, but to be honest that spice is usually months or years old and has lost all its flavour and nutrient value. Just drop a squib of jalapeno in the mix instead. If we are having guests then I will sprinkle a finely chopped peppadew on the surface.

Growing peppadews may interest you; they are my favourite mild chili.

Shall we make this hummus recipe?

Set your stopwatch; in just four-minutes you  will be done.

You may need to add more olive oil, or water, or both, depending on how mushy you like it. 

We add generous amounts of olive oil, tahini and water too. You do it the way you like it. Often I will toss in a radish; it is gives it a bit of a bite. Play with the ingredients until you get the taste you enjoy. Some like it hot, others with more cumin, perhaps quite dry and even a piece of sweet fruit like a few grapes, or half a mango.

Roasted butternut too adds another variation.

Check the stopwatch; just four minutes, and you are done, once you have made your hummus half a dozen times.

Store it in the fridge, and keep it no longer than three days. If you have not finished it, tip it into a stew as a thickener, or your low GI bread recipe. Never throw hummus away; it is more precious than gold.

But it does go off quite quickly which is why commercially they have to add so much preservative; utterly ruins your dish and certainly cannot be described as a healthy hummus recipe.

Vegan seed bread

No lunch is complete without a slice or two of wholesome bread; that unfortunately is not the stuff you purchase at the supermarket. Just read the label.

Although we are not vegetarians we do take advantage of eating plenty of salads and in general all the edible produce from the garden. 

This vegan seed bread is a wonder that you can throw together in less than ten minutes, if you have a little coffee grinder dedicated to herbs and spices.

To lower the GI even further I toss in the leftover healthy hummus recipe. In general, to reduce the glycemic-index of a starch add fibre, protein and fat; oddly, then it will not make you obese because the sugars are absorbed more slowly into the blood stream. This vegan seed bread is the perfect example.

Banting

All legumes are banned from the strict banting way because of the small amount of carbohydrate in them, despite them having a very low glycemic index. So I cannot go along with conventional keto; it means eating too much meat for protein. Type "modified Banting" in Site Search for my version.

My other concern is that those on a very low carb, with high protein diet are far more likely to react badly if infected by a virus like C-19^[3] as compared to those enjoying plant-based food. So our motto is close to zero refined starches, but that in legumes and whole grains is great.

I can promise you that if you enjoy a salad like that above every day, with a good tablespoon of our nutritious hummus recipe, and only half a slice of low GI bread and butter, you will lose weight.

What is in that salad? Avocado, lettuce and spring onion to start with; then there is radish, cilantro and sweet peppers. Baby beets and I think I spy a snow-pea or two; all from our summer garden.

You could grow them too, if you want to live long in the land with all your marbles intact. Use the Site search function in the main menu above to find out about pickled beets, for example.

Amino acids

Proteins are made up of long chains of organic substances called amino acids. Some are "essential" and you cannot live without them, but others can be converted from one to another.

Vegans have to be very careful to make sure they are getting all the essential amino-acids they need.

Our healthy hummus recipe is particularly good because the combination of tahini and garbanzo beans contains all the amino-acids your body needs.

Impossible

You are probably thinking, I could not possibly spend all this time preparing and growing choice foods.

All I can tell you is the benefits are like the stars in the night sky. A couple of months ago I went to the optician for a new set of reading spectacles. He said, after examining my eyes, "you eat a lot of greens, not so?"

I was incredulous. "How on earth do you know?" Replied he, "there is not a sign of cataracts or macular degeneration which is quite remarkable at your age."

I will not belabour the point; you either get it or you don't. Neither the boss, nor I have been to the doctor in the last year; well, once for some spots on the skin from too much time out in the midday sun with other mad dogs and Englishmen at the glider port. Do you remember Noel Coward?

You either spend time, perhaps quite a lot, preparing choice foods, including greens for your eyes's sake, or you end up visiting doctors and pharmacists which takes far more hours, not to mention, pain, suffering and dollars. Pay your money and take your choice; we live and die by our decisions.

Creating a divine green salad is really not as difficult as you imagine; we do it every day, literally, with a liberal scoop of this healthy hummus recipe.

These links might help in your understanding of the benefits of olive oil, parsley, cumin and so on.

• What is cumin? Use the site search function in the navigation bar.
  
• Solar pressure cooking, but of course it works just as well using mains power.
  
• How to grow chilli - jalapenos are so pretty in any garden, healthy too for their anti inflammatory effect.

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1. More about chickpeas
   
2. What is cumin? Web: https://tinyurl.com/4fmx7kmt
3. Plant-based diets and COVID-19 severity

Bernard Preston

In between the time spent making choice foods and working in our garden, and treating a few patients, Bernard Preston, that is me, spends his hours on writing novels. Six are under the belt, and the seventh is on the way. It is a difficult novel, called Priests Denied, in similar vein to the Pulitzer prize winning film Spotlight.

There is nothing about a hummus recipe in it, but plenty on good relationships.

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Address:

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Website:

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