What I Had for Lunch Yesterday

I said in a recent post that I was planning to scale back on my regular what’s-going-on-with-my-life posts and invest my time in projects that I hope will actually make a difference to my readers. One such is a set of videos on various topics concerning healthy eating. I also said that I might start some once-in-awhile posts about “what I ate today.” This is the first of those. They won’t be on any kind of regular schedule; they’ll just show up when I think a specific meal is particularly good and easy to make. (I remembered as I was writing this that I did include a picture and recipe for a lunchtime salad several years ago in connection with a memoir by the chef Nora Pouillon. Scroll down to the bottom of that post for that material.)

Anyway, here’s what I had for lunch today, arranged a bit more artistically on the plate than is perhaps usually the case. The components are: homemade hummus, some chopped-up vegetables—the last bit of a cucumber, some red onion, and some homegrown tomatoes that someone gave me—and homemade chips made from whole-wheat flour tortillas, with a drizzle of olive oil and some ground cumin sprinkled over all. Dee-lish-us! And very, very satisfying. I’m actually feeling a little stuffed as I sit here after eating it. (Here’s the Smitten Kitchen post that inspired my combo.)

You don’t have to make your own hummus, of course, and you can certainly buy pita chips. Maybe no one’s given you some homegrown tomatoes, but store-bought grape tomatoes are pretty good. Don’t let my insanity over making things myself keep you from eating such a nutritious and healthful meal. But making the first two items is really easy, and if you can do so you’ll know exactly what ingredients your meal contains. Sabra, the most popular hummus brand, contains preservatives and the oil it uses is soybean, which is not considered to be a particularly healthful oil, nor is it as tasty as olive oil, which is what I use in my homemade version. Canned chickpeas do have a couple of preservatives, but since the beans are intact and include their skins I don’t know how much of those ingredients is actually absorbed into them. Stacy’s Simply Naked Baked Pita Chips is what I usually buy if I’m bulking up for a party; they’re not bad at all and are made from pretty good ingredients while the tortillas I use have some pretty weird-sounding additives. However, my big reason for making my own chips is that I won’t have many of them on hand and so won’t be tempted to snack on them. Bags of chips sitting in the pantry are FATAL. Also, frankly, I like the homemade-tortilla chips better than I do Stacy’s. Hers are kind of hard and crunchy, while the ones I make from Mission 100% whole wheat tortillas are very crisp and thin, almost flaky. Look at the bottom of the hummus recipe for directions on how I make chips from them.

I have become obsessed with making smooth, light hummus, as you’ll see from the recipe. Once I figured out exactly what to do I went totally gung-ho. For my next Cherry Creek Chorale reception (after the concert on Oct. 12—be sure to come if you live in the Denver area!) I’m going to make a couple of different kinds, I think. I’ll report back!