chickpeas take center stage

Yesterday was a blissful day at home, and when I thought of what I wanted to do with all that unclaimed daylight, naturally I decided to tackle a few recipes I'd read about earlier on npr.com. On the menu: hummus, parsley tahini, lemon dressing and Israeli salad, all from 'Give Chickpeas a Chance.' And when I read these recipes, I knew I'd also have to make some pita bread to go with it. I didn't alter most of these recipes much at all, so I'll just post pics and any alterations I made.

Pita Bread
I didn't make this pita bread in a bread machine, so I did have to do some alterations to the recipe. The most important thing to remember is that SALT KILLS YEAST. You must proof the yeast (add warm water, yeast and sugar together until it gets foamy), then add the oil and then add all the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.

The yeast after it has been proofed

The dough before rising

Resting spot! (a warm spot is best)

After rising for a little over an hour and a half

The pitas after rising for 30 minutes

The finished product!

Parsley Tahini

This recipe was pretty straightforward, but you may notice a new ingredient on the list. Tahini? If you've never cooked with tahini before, think of it as sesame peanut butter that has separated. Open, stir, and its ready to go!

And here is the finished product:

Hummus

I have to admit that I didn't really plan ahead enough for this meal to make chickpeas from scratch, so I just used two cans of chickpeas to cut time. Also, note the garlic count. You could easily cut the number of cloves in half and still have enough of a garlic taste. Also, I don't know if my tahini measurement was off, but the hummus was runny when I was finished (but oh so tasty!).

Lemon Dressing for Hummus

I followed this recipe to a T, and it came out yum! (I used a jalapeno pepper)

Israeli Salad

Holy yum! This salad is amazing! I wasn't sure what an Israeli cucumber was, so I picked up some thin skinned seedless cucumbers and they worked perfect.

For my veggies, I used 5 radishes, a large handful of parsley and half a green pepper. This dish was absolutely phenomenally refreshing, and by far the most beautiful one that I made yesterday.

Here they all are together:

I was so excited about this dish that my hand must have been shaking when I took this picture, but at least you can see how I plated the food.

Thanks NPR (and allrecipes.com) for these great recipes!