We have been cleaning up our eating in our house, and some welcome new favorites have come our way.  Specifically, we are cooking and eating an anti-inflammatory diet. (Heaven help us.)

Hummus

Ingredients

• three 15 oz boxes of chickpeas/garbanzo beans (Whole Foods sells them boxed, but you can also used canned. Do not use the dried ones.)
• juice from 1 lemon
• 1t Za’Atar
• 3 small cloves of garlic
• 1t salt
• 3T olive oil (2 now, one later)
• 1/2C water
• a sprinkle of pine nuts
• flat leaf parsley for garnish

Start in a food processor and blend the garlic into very fine pieces. Then add the chickpeas, za’atar, and salt. Blend that until you are starting to get a smooth texture. Next start adding the liquids. Starting with the lemon juice, then the olive oil, then the water. Go in that order, and if you would like it to be creamier, add more water at the end. Make an attractive mound on the plate, and then create a little bit of a surface on the top. Drizzle olive oil on top, sprinkle additional pine nuts and garnish with the parsley.

I served it with cucumber sliced thickly so that if would not bend when we were scooping it up. This recipe was really successful, and it does not taste bland.