Roasted Beet Hummus
By: Esperanza Rossi
Published: Monday, March 8, 2010 - 10:14am

Ingredients




2 smalls or 1 medium-sized roasted red beet, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup tahini sesame seed paste
juice and zest of one lemon

1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus extra if desired
1 cup cooked chickpeas
1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for thinning the hummus

Preparation

1 Place all ingredients except for the chickpeas and olive oil in a food processor or blender. 2 Pulse until well blended. 3 Add the chickpeas and olive oil and pulse until just incorporated. 4 Add more olive oil as necessary for blending the chickpeas into a paste, or to thin out the hummus to a thinner consistency. 5 Serve with warm pita or flat bread.

About


This past week, Elise Bauer, who publishes Simply Recipes, a wonderful food blog full of her family's quick and simple whole food recipes, posted a recipe for Beet Hummus.  I immediately decided to try it with a couple of roasted beets I had sitting in the fridge, only I failed to notice that the recipe did not call for chickpeas.  Elise uses the roasted beets as a replacement for the chickpeas in her recipe, and I ended up adding the beets in addition to the chickpeas.  The result was a beautiful fuchsia-colored and delicately sweet hummus that is perhaps a lot more filling than Elise's original recipe, but with a milder roasted beets flavor.