A Whole New Hummus

Good evening! It's time for another installment of me versus the cookbook, hooray! We're back to square (actually chapter) one with some "Everyday Antipasti." This recipe was the last one in the "Fresh from the Pantry" section of this chapter. This also marks my third time going through the book! Very exciting!

All the "Fresh from the Pantry" recipes have been pretty easy, and this one is no exception. Tonight's recipe was White Bean Dip with Pita Chips. I didn't see the point in buying pita bread for this little recipe when I still had 1/4 of a baguette in my freezer from the crostini recipe, therefore I used that instead. I sliced the bread extremely thin to make them more chip-like, sprayed each piece with some EVOO, and seasoned them with salt, pepper, and dried oregano. I then placed them on the mini baking sheet and into the toaster oven at 400 degrees.

I recently discovered that lining the mini toaster oven baking sheet with aluminum foil saves me time in clean up. I felt bad because every time I was done using it, one of my roommates needed it and they would end up cleaning my mess. Rather than have them go through that trouble just to dirty it up again, I figured it would be much easier on them (and me!) to use this method. I must say, it's been great :)

As the bread crisped up, I put half a can of cannellini beans, a small clove of garlic, lemon juice, fresh parsley, and salt and pepper into my little chopper (holy run-on sentences Batman!). Once this was coarsely chopped I added two teaspoons of olive oil, then continued to mix it till it was nice and smooth. As much as I love this little chopper, I absolutely hate the sound it makes. If you've ever seen the movie Dumb and Dumber, you'll know what the most annoying sound in the world is. Well this is that sound combined with nails on a chalkboard. At a high amplitude. It's so terrible. Needless to say, I persevered, lost some of my hearing, and got my dip to the proper consistency.

The bread chips came out exactly as i wanted them to. They weren't burned at all, just a nice brown color and EXTREMELY crunchy (my father can attest to this. I was crunching in his ear on the phone). In Giada's notes in her book, she says this dip is the Italian version of hummus. That's what I was expecting when I made it, but there are some subtle differences between the two. This dip is lighter and almost fluffier than hummus. This may be due to my decreasing the amount of oil needed. But I think I prefer the fluffier texture. It was very smooth in texture and the parsley with the raw garlic gave it some spice. I would recommend this for your next party. Maybe I'll even make it for my next family party!

My Dove chocolates have been giving me the same message lately (I eat one chocolate every night. If I didn't, I would go on a crazy chocolate spree). This recurring message is "Patience is a virtue." I do agree with this, but the fact that I keep getting this one makes me wonder, is there something I should be waiting for? Is all this work with cooking going to take me somewhere? Or maybe my bag of chocolates just didn't get mixed up enough. The world may never know.

My next day to cook is Sunday when I take on a new sauce: Checca Sauce! Check back then to see if it's a success, or if I go hungry for the night (ha, me? Hungry? Never!)!

P.S. Happy Birthday Madison!!