A Great Hummus Recipe

I have made a lot of different hummus recipes in my time. I mean a LOT.

This one is the best I have ever made:

Pretty Much The Best Hummus Of All Time

The most exciting part (apart from the obvious fact of it being The Best Hummus Of All Time) is that the ingredients are standard. I think it is the technique and the amounts that make it so special.

Anyway, give it a try if you are hankering for some hummus. ;)

I used borlotti beans and added a little basil for flavouring and it still turned out extremely creamy and divine.

Huzzah for hummus!

Christmasitis

As is often the way, on my first of a whole 5 days off (one of them being Christmas) I appear to be coming down with something. So please excuse me if some of this is hard to follow. You know how it is - you finally have some days off work and have arranged to visit your friends for an afternoon of fun and entertainment, and two hours before you're due to go over you find you can't stomach your lunch, you feel dizzy and ache all over.

Maybe it's all in my head. Maybe I like to have attention and feel that the pregnant girl in the room is getting too much of it and I need some. Maybe I really don't feel like cooking and contributing something for Christmas day to be asked a million questions about it. ("Are these cupcakes vegan? Really? But they would have to have egg in them, right? Really? How do they not just cease to exist without egg or dairy?" "Oh, you don't eat meat. But there was chicken in that dish you made. It was tofu? Really? I thought it was chicken. Are you sure your husband didn't put some chicken in there as a joke? What do you mean he values his life too much? Wait, he's vegetarian? But he eats fish, right?" Have you seen this video? Funniest thing I've seen in ages.)

I could look on the bright side - it is the best excuse possible for taking it easy. It IS the season! Actually, in my parent's house it seems to be the season to run around like a maniac and cook and clean. Does anybody else experience the very strange phenomenon when at some point after the main meal all of the females over a certain age seem to congretate in the kitchen and try to wash and dry up all at the same time? It seems to happen at my parent's house. There will be five people all drying up at the same time and more will be coming up to me asking for dish towels. It's sick, I tell you, sick!

So perhaps getting ill isn't the curse I seem to think it is. Maybe it is the best excuse for relaxing by the pool with a cool drink in my hand and a vegan cupcake in the other, wearing my new swimsuit and ignoring the background comments of "if only she'd eat a steak, then she wouldn't be sick."

By the way, I'm a pretty "covert" vegan in real life. Not many people even know I am, and there were a lot of surprised comments at the work Christmas lunch on Friday. But most people don't really react much, as I don't make a big deal out of it. However, we went out to dinner last night (having called ahead first to make sure they would have something because I think that is the polite thing to do), and when I mentioned to the waitress that I was vegan, her first reply was, "What?" I explained again, "We called ahead, and I'm vegan, so maybe you could ask the chef if there is something suitable." Her facial expression looked like I had leaped up on a couch and done this. She wouldn't talk to me for the rest of the night and didn't even take my plate away when I was finished my meal, although she happily took my husband's plate. What on earth???? I'll agree with some foreign visitors to our country, yes, some of our waiters/waitresses leave a LOT to be desired.

Dear santa, please get me some more vodka from the fridge . . .

Today I went stationery shopping! I know it is sad, but I LOVE stationery megastores like Officeworks. Mr Womble often jokes that I'm going back to study so that I have a legitimate excuse to buy more stationery. I think he's jealous. (Just kidding, Mr Womble!)

On another freaky note, it is only two more weeks until Christmas. At our family get-together every year there tend to be two distinct groups of people. Being a southern-hemisphere Christmas, it tends to be DREADFULLY hot, particularly at the main celebration on Christmas day. One group get thoroughly happy by about lunch-time, spend all day jumping in and out of the pool so that we don't melt, drinking, eating and having fun. I generally make a Christmas cake that is so rum-laden that it can be classified as drinking AND eating simultaneously.

I also do a LOT of drunken text-messaging on Christmas day. (Being vegan I tend to disappear around about the time people start beheading prawns. The smell gets me more than anything. Plus when I'm drunk I'm likely to start adding sound effects. "Where's my mummy? I'm scared! It's so dark in here! Ow! Ow! Ow!" Before anybody gets offended, I'll just add that it goes both ways - I get asked whether I'm worried about the carrots being in pain when I eat them because "plants have feelings, too" (no, I'm not worried, I hate the damn carrots and eat them slowly to cause them extra pain) and I get to tell stories of how when I was a child my family killed and ate my pet chicken. But we all have fun, and nobody takes it too seriously. We're all used to each other's quirks by now.)

The other group seem to spend the whole day sitting in chairs in the shade, looking miserable and asking when lunch is going to be served, or sitting inside and watching the television. My Dad took a picture of them last year. There was a row of flustered, red-faced, miserable people of all ages sitting around a table next to each other. At that point in time, all of the fun people were in the pool (or near their mobile phones). If I did the Christmas card thing, I would make this picture the cover for my cards. It was a great photo of The Dark Side of Christmas.

Ok, so I am being a little narky at these people who choose to spend their Christmas day with all of us. And it IS nice to have them there. Even when somebody starts telling creepy and inappropriate stories of his last business trip that I won't go into here. Family is family.

Thank god, this year more FUN people may be turning up, from the other "happy drunk" side of the family (as opposed to the car-stealing side). The great part about my genetics is that there seems to be a "happy drunk" gene firmly implanted in the x-chromosome, and everybody on that side shares it. So bring on more of the happy drunks!

We've also tried to agree on a sensible Christmas present year this year. There is nothing worse than a room full of people spending hundreds on presents for other people that they don't necessarily want. And yes, I'm easy to buy for, even cheaply. Just give me some stationery and I'll be a happy girl!