Zucchini hummus (and Raw Tahini) – Genuine Observations

Now that we’re at the end of the summer, the zucchini plants in the garden are in full production. It’s hard to keep up with all the fruit that they put out. Twice now, I’ve given away a number of large zucchini and I’ve even made zucchini chips!

But what I really wanted is to make the fruit into something that I can have as a lunch food – hummus – and not have it heavy like what’s made form sprouted garbanzo beans. And, as it so happens, today is a great day to try Zucchini hummus!

I poked around the internet until I found something that looked reasonable. As it turns out, a video posted by RawFoodFamilyLife caught my eye.

Look! Kids are eating it and actually having fun. I’ve got to say, from my point of view, these kids have no idea how well they are being taken care of!

In any case, I paused the video part way through and typed out the recipe.

Recipe:

3 to 4 zucchini pealed
2 to 3 teaspoons tahini
1 squeezed lemon
1 little glove garlic
1 tablespoon of cumin
¼ cup olive oil
Tiny bit of salt

From the looks of it, they just blend until it’s smooth and enjoy.

But it wasn’t that easy for me. I didn’t want to run to the store and pick up some tahini, so I surfed around a bit more to see if I could find a reasonable tahini recipe. As it turns out, I found one that fit the bill:

Making Raw Tahini

This one was from GeekGoneRaw. I stumbled across a Creamed Sesame tahini dessert that I figured I could use the tahini part for my hummus. I’ve copied his recipe here.

Raw tahini:
Sprouted sesame seeds
Raw and unfiltered honey, to taste
Cold-pressed coconut oil and sesame oil
Himalayan salt
(water)

Soak sesame seeds for 8 hours. Drain water, rinse thoroughly and sprout for another 8 hours. The seeds won’t actually grow, the idea is to get rid of the enzyme inhibitors, so that the calcium and other nutrients are better absorbed. Once this is done, place the seeds in a food processor or blender, add honey. Then blend in 50:50 coconut and sesame oil. Add salt. Taste and adjust. I like my tahini with a nice balance of savory and sweet. If you find that cold-pressed sesame oil is too strong in flavor, substitute for more coconut oil.

So the challenge is to get the tahini going so that I can make the hummus. If you read the recipe closely, you’ll see that it takes a while to get the sesame seeds to sprout. Thus, while I’m letting the zucchini grow, I started the sesame seeds.

After a day, I was ready to go.

Just so happened that I had everything that he called for the in recipe and, because there really wasn’t any measurements to follow, I simply added two cups sprouted sesame seeds, 1 Tbs coconut oil, 1 Tbs Olive Oil and 1 Tbs Honey. Followed by a little more than a pinch of salt.

Started with two cups seeds.

Added everything else to it and blended. I didn’t want to make too much, but I probably should have made more. It’s hard working with so little in the blender. In any case, it turned out great!

I had company visiting that I got to try it. I offered up a small pinch, about the size of a peanut. She placed it in her mouth and the expression turned to pleasantly sweet . after a few seconds the bitters from the seeds kicked in and her eyes widened with an “Oh My God!” For a second, she thought that she’d been tricked and then realized that it was really good. Shortly thereafter, she was rattling off different things that would be good with it.

Me, well, I just wanted to add it to the hummus!

And I did.