Don't burn your house down, eat hummus!

I had my first kitchen catastrophe in the new house yesterday... I was going to make cheesy zucchini brown rice and beans, and I thought I could leave the rice to boil while I walked over to pick up Valerie from school... but I was mistaken. We returned to the smell of smoke, a kitchen filled with smoke and some seriously charred black rice in my best stockpot. Sad face. No rice for us, and today the house still smells like smoke. Plus Rich nearly had a heart attack when he found out I left the stove on. We are just glad a real fire didn't start, and the worst damage is to the pot, which has been soaking until I attempt to scrub it.

Since my dinner plan was foiled I came up with another idea and it was more successful. My friend Sarah found this Layered Mediterranean Dip on pinterest and since I had been wanting to make my own hummus anyway, this inspired me to turn hummus into a meal.

from the seeded at the table blog

I made the hummus recipe from my Blendtec recipe book, which is yet to steer me wrong. I had some leftover sun dried tomatoes that I wanted to use up, so I made the sun dried tomato variation of hummus, with some smoked paprika. Wow delicious!!! I have had homemade hummus come out poorly before but this one is a winner.

I spread the hummus on the plate, and topped it with chopped fresh heirloom tomato, cucumber, red onion, parsley and feta. I did not have banana peppers or kalamata olives on hand, or those would have been excellent as well. The pesto layer from the blog version is not represented either because I forgot about it. Next time!

 It came out looking so pretty and appetizing and colorful, and tasted light and healthy but satisfying. I really wished I had some pitas or pita chips to dip in it, but we made do with some toasted Ezekiel bread, lentil chips and crackers.

A few lessons learned: don't leave a pot boiling on the stove on high; and well... I guess that's pretty much it. So, one lesson learned, and one tasty hummus dip eaten. At least the day wasn't a total loss!