Raw Zucchini Hummus

 

A brief foraging trip to the garden this morning brought me an armload of zucchini and two kinds of cucumber. I wanted to use both vegetables for lunch. Zucchini hummus with cucumber sticks came to mind. Back to the garden I went for some garlic, chives and coriander seed.
I hadn't made zucchini hummus for awhile so wanted to look at a recipe. I do have a couple of cookbooks, but for a quick meal like this it's faster to google the name of the dish, scan 3 recipes and either go with the most interesting or improvise from what I've read.
This was the most interesting of the three, and I improvised from this recipe.
raw zucchini hummus (adding garlic to the recipe, of course).

The first time I made this raw zucchini hummus, I looked in Raw Food Made Easy I'm giving you the Amazon link here for a reason. If you go to the Amazon page, you will see that there is a "click to look inside" button. If you click on that, you will find a "search inside this book" dialogue box. If you type in zucchini hummus you will find all references to those words, including the recipe (page 73..yield 1Cup is an indication that that this one is the recipe and the others use the recipe to make other dishes).
I have her book, but I always know where the recipe is when I look for it on my computer.

Most zucchini Hummus recipes are much thinner than regular hummus. What I learned from the recipe in the first link was to add sesame SEEDS as well as tahini to make the mixture thicker. When I thought about it later, I realized that maybe I could make the hummus without buying expensive tahini! I could make the whole thing in my high speed blender with raw sesame seeds, from scratch, and get exactly the texture I wanted! (It works!)

I served the hummus with cucumber sticks, tomatoes, olive tapenade and crackers . The dappled light is caused by the grape arbor above us.

Review: So, while this is about zucchini hummus, the subtext of this post is that there is so much information to be found on the internet, so many recipes, so many ways of doing things...remember to give yourself choice. There was a time when the way to get information was through teachers. Now, one can more easily teach oneself. Please consider this option when you are beginning. Consider spending your money on the equipment you need to more easily make raw food rather than building up a cook book supply or taking lessons. Once you find yourself referring back to a particular chef again and again.....that's the time to invest in their books or lessons. Most chefs have news letters or blogs as well that are a wonderful source of information.

Happy Days with raw food! I just put on some jeans I was wearing 17 years ago when I met James. They fit!