The chick pea mash-up

Time to blend up these bad boys...

Oh I know... it's a cliché of monstrous proportions but let's face it, I had to get houmous onto this blog good and early otherwise, quite rightly, my vegan credentials would have been roundly doubted. If you've never made it for yourself, it's bloody easy and ludicrously cheap if you soak your own chick peas. In fact, for price of a few tubs of the stuff from M&S you could make enough to fill a decent sized paddling pool. So get blending comrades!

If you're starting from dried chick peas, much respect, and don't forget to soak them overnight and simmer them for a good half hour or so before using. Otherwise it's out with the tin opener. The other essential ingredient is tahini, which is basically crushed sesame seeds, which are also good for making oriential-style salad dressings, amongst other vegan goodies.

You'll need a decent blender for this unless you like your houmous a little on the lumpy side; I remember trying it with a hand blender in my student days and finding the whole process thoroughly dispiriting. Decent blender or food processor... essential.

Houmous and pitta - proof that there is a higher being?

Ingredients:

450g soaked and cooked chick peas
Juice of 2 lemons
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
Tsp sea salt
2 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp water

Optional:

2tsp paprika
Handful of coriander leaves

Method:

Put the chick peas, lemon juice, garlic, tahini, olive oil and sea salt into your food processor and start blending. I've used the juice of two lemons here as I think really lemony houmous is a winner. You'll need to blend for a good minute or so and then make a judgement call about how much water needs to go in. When I was making this batch this afternoon, just one tablespoon did the job – add the water and continue to blend for a few minutes until really smooth. If the mixture looks a little thick, add tiny amounts of water at time to get it right. DON'T add too much, as watery houmous is the work of the devil and not to be tolerated.

Pimp my houmous:

That's the basic houmous done and the one we have at home as my lot have simple tastes. At this point though you could add paprika or coriander or even go really made and lob an avocado in there and make a kind of wacky houmous/guacamole fusion.

Serve:

With pitta bread, obviously! Dreamy combo, never to be beaten. Or you could go for little carrot and cucumber batons if you're trying to kid the little ones into eating more veg.