Cooking vegan

First a disclaimer: I know little about the vegan diet, only enough to know it isn't for me. Nor am I recommending it. I would never be vegan. My vegan friend rarely looks on here, so I will speak plainly... This is a worthy topic however. Why is it worthy? Cooking vegan helps save the planet, helps save your wallet and no doubt your waistline... But again, not for me. Vegetarian quite very possibly. Though my love for seafood gets in the way of that. All I want to do here is share some of the recipes I've cooked before or on a regular basis.

Aside from a small bowl of sour cream (that was devoured by two little girls who shall remain nameless) Tilly's birthday was entirely vegan. I'm not focusing on this so called 'spread' below as it was pretty average. Nice, but nothing to commit an entire post on. Although the fresh mango and watermelon were big hits. Along with the chips and salsa (that I didn't even make). And the fresh crunchy veggies. All my friends kids love veggies. I even have diehard fast food friends (expect pizza and KFC on any given visit to theirs...... also not readers of this blog) and even their kid loves veggies. I don't buy into the whole my kid won't eat his veggies thing. I digress. Only the hummus in here is what I am writing of.

Hummus is one of my favourites to make. The key ingredient here is not the chickpea, but the tahini. You can't make hummus without it. Tahini used to be really easy to get. And by easy I mean one shop in one particular place had it at least most of the time. Now I can't get it at all. But hummus is my go to for many occassions. So I had to fix the tahini problem. And for that I went here.

I love that blog. I love food and read cookbooks and food blogs like I would read a book. So I learned how simple it was to make tahini. Admittedly I did not make the tahini for this batch of hummus. But this batch did use up the last in the bottle I had my vegan friend wander the city for...... I did make tahini last week for another one of my vegan recipes, but that's for another post.

So, hummus. Spelled differently around the world. This is my recipe, though I can't remember where I got it from. Probably a blog. Maybe, taste.com.au, who knows. All I could remember was that it had tahini and cumin. The other key ingredient.

Take two cans of chickpeas. Don't bother with soaking dried. I'm not into that. Leave a bit of the juice from the can. It helps keep it slick. Not too much mind. Whizz in a food processor. It should already look smooth. Add two heaped tablespoons of tahini, dash of salt, pulped fat clove of garlic (raw I mean - no precrushed bottled garlic here please, heaven forbid!), good shake of cumin and a splash of olive oil. And that is that. Without the tahini, cumin and garlic it just tastes like mushy chickpeas. (And I think only a vegan would be willing to eat mushy chickpeas.) It's a winner for me. A note, I always find it best to keep in the fridge over night. Tastes much better after a good old sit. There it is in the black bowl on the table.