Hummus for Hockey at Home

It's a wonderful experience--and for us, a rare one--to see hockey games at the arena. Most of the time, our seats are Center Ice. That's a good thing, too. Watching at home means we don't have to worry about lines to the bathroom (which is clean), and we can kiss to celebrate goals, and we have a much wider variety of food and drink available.

I actually kinda missed hummus at Mellon and Joe Louis, seriously. Our friends like it lots when they come over to watch. With pita chips, pretzels, or cut-up vegetables, it's a lot healthier than other snacks we could have. We appreciate this. I don't know about y'all, but I can't have straight-up junk food for every hockey game. After all, L'Ailee and I each love a different team. Factor in a NASCAR race (a/k/a my first sports love) every weekend for nine months, and I could quite easily become one of those people on Discovery Health who needs to be taken out of their home with a crane if I'm not careful about what I eat.

So, tonight we'll be having hummus while we watch the Penguins versus the Buffalo Sabres. It seemed to me like my favorite hummus should be the first of those occasional food recipes I promised. You can get it pre-packaged, but it's so much cheaper to make it, and you can tailor it to your tastes. Stick tap to Saad Fayed from About.com Middle Eastern Food, because he has a world of variations on hummus and he makes it really easy. I adapted this from one of his recipes. Mine's a bit thicker than the original, though.

Roasted Red Pepper and Garlic Hummus

1 can of chick peas/garbanzo beans (15 oz)
1/4 cup tahini
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 cup -3/4 cup roasted red peppers (depending on taste)

Drain and rinse chick peas (this will reduce sodium slightly and eliminate any tinny taste.) In a food processor, combine chick peas, tahini, lemon juice and olive oil. Process until smooth. Add red peppers and garlic until desired consistency.

Garnish with parsley. Serve warm with hot pita bread, toasted pita chips, pretzels, or vegetables.

Roasted red pepper hummus can be made up to two days in advance and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Heat up in microwave or on stovetop to serve.

Hopefully tonight's game will have me adapting another element of Middle Eastern culture at home--namely, belly-dancing during intermission to celebrate how awesome the Penguins are doing! Let's go Pens!