Practical & Strategic Collaboration

There are many traditions humans keep – one my wife introduced me to was that of eating black-eyed peas on New Years Day for luck and prosperity.  As the food item is still new to my recipe book I find myself looking for new ways to prepare/cook it every year.  This year Antares suggested hummus – and thanks to the internet, the inspiration was easy to find. Based on a recipe from Kalyn’s Kitchen I chose to replace chickpeas with black-eyed peas and used lemon and sumac instead of Thai chili paste (my standard hummus recipe is a bit spicy).

First, Kalyn’s Kitchen blog is setup great and the recipe is a fantastic base to go with – lots of pictures, great descriptions, everything. Definitely check her site out before deciding exactly how to proceed.  Here’s what I did today for ours:

• 12 oz can strained black-eyed peas
• 8 tbsp tahini
• 2 tbsp chopped garlic
• 1/2 cup olive oil (estimated)
• 4 tbsp black-eyed peas juice (estimated)
• 1/2 cup feta cheese
• 1 tbsp cumin
• 1 tsp sumac
• Salt & Pepper to taste

The instructions are simple – put all of the ingredients in your food processor and turn it on – don’t stop until you have a nice blend with very little chunks.  Note that I have the black-eyed peas juice and olive oil both as estimated – I do not measure them out, but instead add a bit of each at a time until I am satisfied with the consistency, focusing on olive oil first, of course.

My recipe has more garlic than Kalyn’s does.  Also, I used the juice from the can instead of water.  Lastly, I added pepper and feta cheese.  I appreciated the suggestion of sumac, I don’t use it enough and my wife, who doesn’t normally like the spice really enjoyed this batch of hummus – I’d say that’s a win right there!

Let me know if you have any thoughts – I really enjoyed this break from our typical spicy hummus and thought it was a great way to honor my Greek heritage while keeping up with newer traditions!