Hummus, Crudités, and Other Fancy Things

My husband and I moved to our little corner of Iowa so that he could begin his parish ministry just over a year ago. (Has it been that long!?) Given my love for cooking and entertaining, and given the fact that we knew absolutely no one, we set out on a lofty mission: to have every single church member over for dinner at our house. Fortunately we didn't set ourselves a timeline. However, we weren't exactly planning to move at the snail's pace of 12 people a year. That's six couples. Six dinners. In an entire year. Things happen, ya know. So yeah, 12 people down and only ~88 more to go.

Now that school is looming only three weeks away, we've decided to get a little more serious about this entertaining business! We entertained two different nights this week, back to back! As a result, I needed some food options that would work equally well with the two different meals each night. The food could not reveal that it had been served before, and needed to be as fresh the second night as it was the first. In other words, pies and hot dishes (two of my favorite things) were out.

The first night I served a vegetable hodge podge; it was an ecclectic array of everything currently growing in my garden. The second night, I wanted to show case a marvelous pear chutney, so I went with pork chops topped with the chutney...... surrounded by a hodge podge of garden vegetables. I was able to re-use three things: sliced watermelon, hummus from New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone (NVCE), and a fun little dessert mousse served in individual glasses that I found in a different cookbook.

The hummus went particularly well with cut up veggie sticks. The first night, I served these as part of the meal. The second evening, I used Deborah Madison's suggestion and served them as crudités. Crudité is a very fancy French word for "cut up raw vegetables."  It definitely sounds better in French. Crudités are served as appetizers along with nuts and dips. I decided to get my fancy French on and go for it. I practiced saying "crudité" in my best French accent all afternoon before the meal. My line was going to be "Welcome! Dinner will be just a minute, but please help yourself to some crudités. Would you care for a glass of Chenin Blanc?" I wanted it to sound cultured but casual, and not too pretentious. It needed to be innocently snobby. The whole thing was very meta. As soon as the guests walked in the door, I greeted them, pointed to the appetizer, and blurted out "There's some chopped up veggies over there, help yourself! Do you like white wine?" It was probably better that way...

The crudités and hummus were a huge hit. I actually had a hummus recipe before I tried Deborah Madison's version. I like hers better, and won't be going back.

Madison calls her hummus "Spicy Chickpea Puree," and it can be found on page 87 of NVCE. I've noticed this about Madison's book. She sometimes (but certainly not always) renames classic preparations of ethnic dishes to their constituent parts. She calls hummus a chickpea puree, and tzatziki is "Cucumber Yogurt Sauce". Borsch is simply "Beet Soup." It is a bit throwing.

You will also see pictured the "Salted Almonds," from page 79. I made these for the appetizer platter. They had a lovely roasted flavor, but the salt did not stick well at all. I used kosher salt, which was one of the options given in NVCE. If I make them again I might try sea salt.

Tahini is the most important secret ingredient in any good hummus. Tahini is like peanut butter, but made with sesame seeds instead of peanuts. I get mine from Amazon, because they've never even heard of such a thing in my small town grocery.

Combine all the ingredients

And give it a whirl! So pretty... Remember, hummus is one of those forgiving foods that can be adjusted to taste. So make sure you have a bag of chips nearby and do plenty of tasting as you go!

My lovely snooty crudité platter

What a way to start the evening off right

***Disclaimer: All representations of Deborah Madison's recipes on this blog are intentionally incomplete. Do not attempt to copy a recipe from this blog. I have intentionally left out critical steps and ingredients to avoid copyright infringement. All recipes should only be attempted when referencing the book in which they were originally published.***