Harvest Monday - April 11, 2011

Called "Harvest Monday", Daphne over at Daphne's Dandelions set it up as a way for garden bloggers to show off their harvests. It sounded fun, and a great way for me to challenge myself to be more creative with my harvests - especially this early in the spring. I wanted in, so here's my first Harvest Monday post!

I have been noticing this leek every time I enter my garden. It's the biggest one from those that I planted last year, and today was finally its day to be harvested. We tend to have late springs, cool summers and early falls here in the Pacific Northwest. Leeks require a longer growing season than we happen to have. It usually takes my leeks just over one year to mature - those that I plant in early spring one year are ready to harvest in the early spring of the following year.  

 Today I dug up that leek.

Then I took it over to the water faucet and washed the dirt out of its roots. I haven't cooked it yet, but maybe I will slice it thin to saute and stuff into an omelette tomorrow.

I also snipped off some of those chives that were growing next to that leek. I had chickpeas cooking in the crockpot back in my kitchen so I could make up a batch of hummus later, and decided to flavor some of it with fresh chives.

At home, after washing the chives, I chopped them up and processed them with one of the batches of hummus.

Not sure what I was thinking, but if I ever add chives to hummus again, I need to do a better job of slicing them. I should have sliced them into much smaller pieces than I did. Maybe I was tired after spending most of the afternoon in the garden crawling around on my knees as I planted a large bed of red onions and then spaced white onions in between, then planted a small bed of Lacinato kale, then a large bed of fava beans, another small bed of mixed purple and pink poppies, and then pulled some weeds. Probably I was just lazy though. Anyway, while the flavor is good, the bits and pieces of chives in the hummus seem just a bit too big, too chunky, than I like. This batch would be more appropriately called Rustic Chive Hummus.

One recipe's worth of hummus makes a lot of hummus. Besides the batch with the chives, I left one batch just plain - but with lots of garlic, and I added sundried tomatoes to another batch. The sundried tomato hummus is my favorite! I gave a couple of tubs to a neighbor, and after having some with dinner, stowed the rest away in my freezer.

Here's the recipe I use.

Hummus

2 cups dried garbanzo beans

4 cups water (for soaking garbanzo beans)

4 cups water (for cooking garbanzo beans)

6 large garlic cloves, peeled

1 lemon, juiced

1/3 cup tahini

1/2 teaspoon salt*

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup water

Rinse and drain the garbanzo beans, then soak overnight covered with the 4 cups of water. In the morning, drain and rinse the beans. Place them in a crockpot with 4 cups of water and cook on low for 6 hours. Pour cooked garbanzo beans in a collander to drain, then rinse with cold water. Combine the cooked beans with the remaining ingredients in a food processor or blender, and process until the mixture is smooth. Keeps in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks or can be frozen. If frozen, place in the refrigerator to thaw.

Optional add-in flavorings: Sundried tomatoes, chives, onions, olives, be creative.

*Note: most people include pepper along with the salt in their list of ingredients for hummus. I am severely allergic to all forms of pepper and peppers so obviously there is no pepper in my recipe, but add some.