Quick and Easy Hummus

Hummus, houmous, hummous - however you choose to spell it, with a little bit of planning you can make a super tasty batch of it at home.  I tend to keep dried chickpeas at home. If you have these on hand, you'll want to prep the night before. This means rinsing and soaking the dried chickpeas overnight (or at least 8 hours). 

What you'll need:

• 300g chickpeas
• 6 tablespoons water
• 3 tablespoons oil
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 2 tsp granulated garlic
• 1 tsp sea salt

What to do:

If you're using soaked chickpeas, you will need to boil the chickpeas first. Rinse off the chickpeas, place them in a saucepan with cold water and bring to a boil. Allow to boil for 10 minutes, then simmer for another 50 minutes. (This is what I meant by a little bit of planning...)

OR Use canned chickpeas, which are typically pre-cooked! 

Place the chickpeas in a food processor or blender, then add the water, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt, and chili powder. Technically most hummus recipes also call for tahini, which is a sesame paste. If you have some, you are super welcome to use it. However, you don't absolutely need it for this recipe. Maybe it's a little unorthodox, but it's still tasty! In the paste, the lack of tahini in my kitchen scared me away from trying hummus recipes - don't let that be a problem for you.

Use a low/medium pulse setting to blend up the ingredients. Even with a blender, this step only took a little over a minute!

Chop up a carrot or tear up some pitta bread and dig in! 

Quinoa Nori Wrap

Ever since trying out quinoa in place of brown rice in sushi last week - it totally works, by the way - I've been making these super tasty and healthy quinoa nori wraps for lunch. Quinoa is full of protein, which makes it the ideal filler for a vegetarian lunch.

What you'll need (makes 2 servings):

• 2 sheets of nori 
• 1.5 cups cooked quinoa (about 1 cup uncooked)
• avocado
• carrot
• bell pepper
• optional: soy sauce and wasabi

What to do:

Rinse off your quinoa (about 1 cup uncooked) and bring to a bowl in a saucepan. Reduce and allow to simmer for about 15 minutes. You can also do this ahead of time and use cold quinoa. The wraps work well both hot and cold!

Lay out the nori sheets and spread the quinoa evenly over each sheet, nearly to the edge.

Next, thinly slice the vegetables of your choice - I really like using an avocado, carrot, and half a bell pepper for two wraps.

Place the sliced vegetables in the middle of the quinoa, then carefully roll the wrap. If your wrap is oriented like the picture above, start rolling from the left or right hand side.

If you have a bamboo sushi rolling mat, you can use that to roll up the mat. It's not totally necessary though, so don't worry if you don't have one on hand! Finally, slice the rolls in half and enjoy your protein packed veggie lunch!

I like to dip mine in a bit of soy sauce and wasabi. Okay, maybe a lot of wasabi. That part's optional though, of course!