A day of cooking (and eating)

I am happy in the kitchen. Not in that housewifely way where I live to feed the hoards and will sing a song of joy whilst I wash and wipe up after they spent 3 minutes devouring a meal that I took 4 hours to cook, no, in that I really like creating meals out of what is ripe on the day or whipping up something knowing that its going to taste spectacular because it has flavour and I know exactly what is in it.

I'm home from work and have been out picking tomatoes, lettuce, spinach and zuchini.

I was feeling a bit creative so at lunch time I cooked up home made baked beans using my tomatoes, garlic, onions and the broad beans we grew in spring. Oh my – on toast, so delicious – I cant wait for P to try some.

On the broad beans, I decided to try something that I had seen in our local supermarket. Broad bean hommus dip. Lets face it, hommus is only chickpeas blended with garlic etc. how hard can it be?

The supermarket one had listed the ingredients (including preservatives etc) on the side and I thought I might try to emulate it (without the preservatives etc).

So Here is my version of broad bean hommus dip

250 g of broad beans (blanched peeled and cooked) **

juice of 1 lemon

pinch of salt
pinch of paprika

3 cloves garlic
2 or 3 sprigs of mint
1 mild chilli (de-seeded)

put everything in a food processor and pulse - add about 1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil - pulse again until everything resembles a paste.

put into a nice bowl, sprinkle with a little paprika, splodge a bit of olive oil over the top and serve with the crackers of your choice or toast up some Lebonese flat bread.

** boil up some salted water, add broad beans and cook for about 3 minutes.  Refrigerate and use in the dip mixture when cold.

We also had the dip smothered over bbqued lamb kebabs for dinner ... pretty good even if I say so myself.