Tasty Foods: Zucchini Hummus

I'm tempted to run upstairs and whip up a batch of zucchini hummus just so I can take some photos for this post, but I'm out of avocados and there are no grocery stores open after 10 PM in SOMA (don't get me started on the EBAY Now ads that make ZERO sense to me.  Who goes to the park, thinks they are starting to burn and orders sun screen for delivery in about an hour????? By the time your sun screen arrives you WILL have a sunburn, I'm sorry to say.). 

Rod and Judy were awesome enough to share the recipe they served for zucchini hummus when we went over for dinner at their place the first time. I have to say, I like it more than "standard" hummus, and I really like hummus. 

Zucchini hummus is amazingly light and doesn't have the same heaviness that a bean based hummus has (though I guess you may be okay with that fullness). It's raw, it's vegan and it's delicious.  

I made two batches for our wedding. Originally I was going to make a double batch using the recipe from ibreatheimhungry, which is pretty darn delicious on it's own. It was the morning before the wedding and I had a couple of avocados that needed to be used so I decided to throw them in the mix.  

Zucchini hummus + Avocados = AMAZING!  

The original recipe is as follows.  I made it the first few times using my Ninja and it took a while to really break everything down and get it smooth.  We got a BlendTec (of Will it Blend? fame) and it made short work of the hummus (about 45 seconds).  Play with what you've got to find out how awesome this recipe is.  

It's amazing as a dip but I've also discovered how rad it goes with just about everything. Top a steak with it. Top a chicken breast with it.  Breakfast sausage?  It's delicious. 

ORIGINAL LOW CARB HUMMUS (from ibreatheimhungry.com)

Ingredients:

4 cups peeled & chopped raw zucchini

3/4 cups tahini (sesame paste)

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup olive oil

4 cloves of garlic, peeled

2 teaspoons kosher salt (or to taste)

1 Tbl ground cumin

Combine all ingredients in a blender and puree until thick and smooth.  Taste and adjust seasonings to your preference.  Pour into a shallow bowl and garnish with parsley, paprika and a drizzle of olive oil if desired.  

My modified version of this recipe swaps out the 1/4 cup of olive oil for 2 avocados.  The remaining ingredients remain the same as do the instructions.  
 
This was one of the first non-AIP foods I tried eating and it appears I can tolerate seeds (sesame paste), which made me really happy.  Cumin is technically not AIP friendly, but I was going a bit nuts and just wanted "regular" food. I haven't had any sort of noticeable reaction to this recipe, so it's in regular rotation. 
 
Speaking of AIP, I think I need to get back to being super serious about it. For days now, my sinuses have been swollen (they feel like they "pop") and I've had terrible headaches. I'm not sure if it's the pressure changes due to the rain or what, but I'm pretty miserable. Loosening up made getting through the wedding a bit easier, but I really need to isolate foods to find out what is tolerable and what is not (the sunbutter cookies I came up with last week were amazing. Hopefully they weren't the issue). 

I've got dirt!

I'm so excited.  Today I was assigned a plot in the community garden at Victoria Manalo Draves Park!

This is a park about 1/2 a block away from us.  We take Pi there every day to play.  There had been no changes to the bulletin boards for a couple of years (I think the last postings were from early 2011), but I always would check to find out where to sign up for the waiting list or who to contact to find out how long the list was.

Most of the community gardens in San Francisco have wait lists that are several YEARS!  So when there was finally some updated contact information on the bulletin board in January, I practically ran home to email.

When I got an email saying there were 6 plots opening up (and there were only 5 people on the email list), I was practically jumping for joy.

We had our first garden meeting this morning.  It was a good chance to meet some new people with common interests in the neighborhood.

Here is my plot.  It's pretty shady, but I have
a lemon tree!  

I am a bit under the weather and I had a horrendous amount of homework to finish today, but I allowed myself 2 hours at the garden including the meeting.  I did some weeding (okay, a LOT of weeding).  There were a couple of kale plants in that jungle and I even ended up pulling a few tiny carrots out of the ground.

Here I am with Pi and my plot
(only a bit more clover to pull out!)

So at the moment I'm not entirely sure what I'll be planting. I have to do some research, I think this garden has even more shade than my last garden.  I know that greens will do well, so kale and chard are a must (and I eat a lot of both!).

I'm going to try out using www.smartgardener.com to plan my garden.  I haven't reintroduced any nightshades to my diet, so a lot of things I normally grow are out (peppers, eggplant, etc.) plus we don't have much of a hot growing season here.  It's basically cool aside from a few weeks in July and August here.  I have to say, based upon the recommended plants, I'll be growing greens and lettuce.  Lots of greens and lettuce.

I just found some add ons to Smart Gardener that I am going to try out.  They are the Smart Squares and Smart Shade.  My garden is only about 8x3 and is in the shade most of the time.  I think these would be worthwhile add ons to try out.

I'll admit though, my excitement isn't because I think I'm going to have loads of veggies or fruits.  It's more because it's a ray of sunshine and nature in this grungy place. It felt awesome to be outside, in the sunshine and getting dirty (actual dirt not all the other stuff that makes this city dirty).  It was nice to be with people who feel the same way.  I've never really had a substantial harvest of anything in all the years of gardening, but I love to do it.

And Pi is going to love basking in the garden while I work.  It's fenced in and there is plenty of room on the opposite side of the garden that gets sun for her to enjoy.