From The Books Thursday: Hungry Girl Hummus

My mom and I have become HUGE fans of hummus this summer, but had never made our own.  I first had hummus many years ago without really knowing what it was, just a yummy dip for celery. Then I had it again at Casablanca (cool place) in Milwaukee for my friend Joe's birthday two years ago. Ever since then, I occasionally would get cravings for it, but was too lazy to do anything about it. I found a recipe on Pinterest to make a layered Greek dip with a hummus base and I created it for a friend's Labor Day party.

That layered dip can be found here. I didn't make my own hummus, just bought that from the store because I was having a hard time finding tahini and sesame seed oil. (And I was crunched on time.) But this is the dip that my mom tried and absolutely loved. She started to make herself miniature hummus dips to take to work for lunch.

My first Foodie Pen Pal package had single servings of hummus in it, and I'm hoping some store in the Milwaukee area carries these - no luck so far. They are perfect little packs that you just squeeze and the hummus pipes itself onto your veggies or pita chips.

I recently found a recipe for Artichoke Hummus in my Hungry Girl 200 Under 200 cookbook and thought I would give it a try. I love Lisa Lillien - she transforms regular meals into low calorie versions without sacrificing flavor at all. She has numerous books, a TV show, daily emails, and appearances, yet she continues to create new recipes in the Hungry Girl kitchen everyday.

Look at all those tabs on the top of recipes to try! 

This time I was making it completely from scratch. I only had to buy the Greek yogurt and artichoke hearts as I had everything else in the house and it didn't call for Tahini or sesame seed oil. (PS - found out that tahini is located by the peanut butter - so now I know!)

Apparently, my mom has an obsession with Garbanzo beans (or we have thought to make hummus in the past and forgot) because we had four cans on the shelf. We never have 4 cans of anything on the shelf in our hosue!  The cuke and green pepper are my additions to make it a layered dip.

I started to put everything in the blender, but took a break to mash the garbanzo beans. This was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Definitely use sturdy tools to mash!

Then it's everything in the blender and BLEND AWAY!

We taste tested this hummus compared to the store bought we had in the fridge, and we both preferred the homemade. Sure it wasn't a complete apples to apples comparison (or should I say chickpea to chickpea), but we really liked the tartness of the homemade. I did add a little dill to the hummus for added flavor. Lisa Lillien, you have another successful recipe!

Then I chopped up 1/2 the cucumber, 1/3 the green pepper, 10 kalamata olives and then sprinkled feta cheese and a little more dried dill to make the beautiful creations below.

This makes technically 8 servings but at 56 calories a serving, I doubled our portions for lunch and took some pita chips. Count in the veggies and cheese and this is a nutritious and very delicious, yet simple lunch!

From the Books Thursday: Stuffed Green Peppers

(As part of attending OnlineBlogCon this week, I have been changing up my blog to a fresher template. Hoping to have it completely done in a week, but let me know what you think of the new color scheme!)

I have decided to start going through my cookbooks (as I have way too many that aren't getting used) and start sharing my adapted versions of the recipes in them.

My mom suggested a few weeks ago that we should have stuffed green peppers and found a recipe in the Taste of Home Favorite Brand Name Recipes 2002 book. We had almost everything in the house to make these so it seemed practical. Plus this is a favorite comfort food of mine.

We didn't have rice, so we used couscous instead.

We also didn't have enough chopped tomato or onion, so I increased the amount of zucchini, mushrooms and Parmesan cheese.

There was plenty of filling for the 6 pepper halves the recipe called for and could have had another half or two.

I covered them up and let them cook for 20 minutes. The recipe called for 35, but they looked pretty good already.

Ready for the oven

I sprinkled on some parm and let them cook for another 10 minutes. I opened the oven for a peak, and smelt a slight burning smell and decided they were done. (Recipe called for 20 more minutes).

Right out of the oven with just Parmesan cheese

I pulled them out and sprinkled some shredded mozzarella over each pepper half because my family absolutely loves cheese. We let them sit for 5 minutes and then served them up.

Added mozzarella cheese!

The peppers cut through without a problem and the filling was hot, gooey and delicious.

I served the peppers with a multi-grain bread I made the day before in my family's breadmaker.

I would definitely make this recipe again but this time, I would possibly cut the ingredients back a bit more and add some ground turkey.


Complete recipe from Taste of Home

Taste of Home Vegetable Stuffed Peppers