Chocolate Croissants [Brunch edition]

Hello my fellow travellers,

Hosting a brunch sounds easy but menu planning is a bit more difficult. You want to serve foods that are perfect for either lunch or breakfast. Generally brunch items consist of muffins, quiches, croissants, and other light foods. Instead of heading to the store to pick up a box of croissants, why not make your own homemade version for half the price?

Hummus with Olive Turkish Bread [Brunch Edition]

Hello my fellow travellers,

As a part of the brunch series, I’m looking at different foods you can serve that are a bit different than the regular quiche or muffins. Hummus is perfect for such an occasion along with a nice, soft loaf of Olive Turkish bread (bought from Cobs Bakery). The hummus is a great dip for the bread. If you can’t find Turkish bread in your locale, you can either make it at home or find bread from a bakery that is soft, aerated, and slightly chewy in texture. Bakers are your friends, ask them to help you find something similar to Turkish bread.

 

Quick and easy Hummus

When you think about hummus that you can get from Arabic restaurants, it may look like a lot of work went into putting that hummus on your table. Especially with the pretty parsley garnish and fancy cut tomatoes. But who would have thought making hummus is actually really easy! When I made hummus for the first time , I clocked in at an hour. I became more efficient and now can make a batch in half an hour (this is excluding chickpea cooking time).

A bowl of hummus can set you back $4.99 at most restaurants but this homemade recipe won’t cost you even close to that since most people have the ingredients on hand (and in bulk). I also remember back in the day when hummus wasn’t even that popular in Canada. People would scratch their heads and say, “humm-us?” Now the high protein dip is a staple in many households (particularly popular among vegetarians).

Recipe

2 cups chick peas, boiled

1 tsp baking soda

5 gloves garlic, crushed

1-2 lemons, juiced

1/2 cup tahina (ground sesame paste you can find at a Arabic speciality grocer or even perhaps your regular grocery store).

salt, to taste

Garnish

1/2 cup parsley, finely chopped

olive oil

Sumac, for sprinkling

Method

1. Soak the chick peas over night (12 hours or more) in a bowl of cold water. Add 1 tsp of baking soda to the water. 
2. Drain the water and cook in your pressure cooker for about 25 minutes. Each pressure cooker is usually different so check the manual for exact chick pea cooking time. My pressure cooker cooks the chick peas well in 1/2 hour.
3. Drain the chick peas through a sieve placed on top of a bowl. Make 100% sure you collect leftover water from the pressure cooker in the bowl. Do not dump out the water even if it will look unappealingly brown. You’ll need it for later.
4. Add the chick peas in your food processer (or a powerful blender) and blend. Slowly add some of the chick pea water that you saved. This really brings out the flavour in the hummus. Add juice of 1/2 lemon (save the other half for end), crushed garlic, tahina and salt to taste. To thin hummus out more, add a little more of the leftover chick pea water. Squeeze rest of the lemon and blend.
5. Serve on plate garnish with parsley, drizzle of olive oil, and sprinkle of sumac.

Enjoy!