We were weeding our four beds of onions today and came across some volunteer potatoes that we had let grow amidst the onions. The plants were big, and we pulled them out along with two to three small bright potatoes. Just by weeding a few plants out, we got about three pounds of red, fingerling, and dark purple potatoes. They were beautiful in the dark soil, and so exciting to harvest.
Harvesting volunteers is so gratifying. Its almost a "free lunch," since there was no planning or maintenance involved to grow the food. And we make lunch from them. We like to keep some "wild" in our farm and garden. It often surprises me on how much life overflows without too much human control. There is so much food out there just growing on its own, if only we are there to see it.
Many of us have made hummus. There are loads of recipes all over the internet that will tell you how many cloves of garlic to put in and how much oil to add to make it just right. But after I forgot to measure the dry garbanzo beans the night before, my thoughts of writing down an accurate recipe for hummus were gone. I don't think I've really ever used a strict recipe for hummus (or for much else for that matter), so I feel as though outlining some guidelines and ideas on how to improve you hummus-making technique will be much more appropriate. And this way you have the ability to amp up the garlic to extreme levels, if that's how you roll, or keep it mellow. I'll also add some ideas for addition to make your everyday hummus experience novel and exciting.
While I was living in the Berkeley Student Cooperatives during college, we had a work-shift where housemates made hummus for communities of 50 to 150 every week(because berkeley hippies demand hummus!). They'd cook massive pots of beans, foam frothing in billowy clouds, and overheat the food processor after 12 batches of the stuff. It would all end up in 5 gallon kitchen bins for others to smear on sandwiches whenever they pleased. It was great to have unlimited homemade hummus around all the time, however, I was never satisfied with how they made it. Maybe it was because I was the biggest foodie in the house and probably the only one that cared enough. In any case, I always hated the grainy oily texture that made it taste too heavy and over-seasoned. Hundreds of coop residents were coming to believe that this was what homemade hummus tasted like. I couldn't really taste the beans themselves. Something had to change.
