We eat a lot of chickpeas (garbanzo beans) in our house. We bake them, put them in salads, make soup and create the traditional yummy Middle Eastern dish – hummus. Hummus is basically a concoction of olive oil, lemon, chickpeas, sesame tahini and garlic, and is supposedly one of the oldest dishes dating back to Egypt 7000 years ago!

Once you have the basic recipe together you can really get creative with it. I made some this past weekend with roasted sweet potato and it was delicious. It is very healthy dish, which I like to serve with raw vegetables like cucumbers, carrots and capsicum. It is also perfect for little hands! Miles Storm loves his hummus.

Chickpeas are a great source of protein, manganese, iron, tryptophan and fiber, they also contain an extremely high amount of molybdenum which is an antioxidant that apparently can prevent cancers by protecting cells from free radicals. Additionally, sweet potatoes contain high levels of Vitamin C, Vitamin A and Vitamin B6.

Good times all around! You just cannot go wrong with some home cooked hummus.

When I make any chickpeas dish I prefer using organic hard chickpeas compared to the canned variety which have sat in salted water for who knows how long! This makes the process a lot longer but the taste of the chickpeas is a lot better.

Home Made Sweet Potato Hummus

WHAT YOU NEED

• 20 cloves of organic garlic.
• 1 large sweet potato cut into small pieces
• Sprigs of rosemary
• Half a cup of olive oil
• 6 cups of organic chickpeas (which you can buy at a health food store)
• Quarter of a cup of tahini (sesame seed paste)
• 1 small organic lemon

PREPARATION

• First soak the chickpeas overnight in cold water, for a minimum of 10 hours.

• Chop Sweet potato in small pieces, combine with rosemary and garlic cloves in baking tray and roast on 375F for 1.5 hours

• Boil chickpeas in fresh water on high for 2 hours until tender.

• Combine olive oil, tahini paste, chickpeas, 3 cups of the roasted sweet potato & garlic and juice of one lemon.
• Put in food processor and blend.
• Enjoy your Hummus!

As you can see from the photos, this recipe creates a lot of hummus so unless you are having a party I suggest you put it in small containers and freeze it. Or, you can half the ingredient list. If you are going to keep it in the fridge for a while, top it with a small layer of olive oil so it keeps well.

Thanks for reading my BLOG!

Miles Storm loves hummus