Olive and Sun-Dried Tomato Hummus

I’ve never met a vegetarian or vegan who doesn’t like hummus.  In fact, I don’t think I know anyone who doesn’t like hummus; and I don’t want to.

However, I know plenty of people who hate olives.  These little fruits (yes, they are in fact fruit!) seem to be one of those great dividers of people, forcing people into two distant camps: olive lovers and olive haters.  This recipe is for the olive lovers.

I have to give total props to Dreena Burton and her cook book, “Eat, Drink & Be Vegan: Everyday Vegan Recipes Worth Celebrating” for this recipe.  It’s an awesome book, with lots of delicious and unique recipes.  It’s not gluten-free specifically, but does have a recipe for gluten-free cookies that I need to try!

Anyways, on to the hummus.  For this recipe, you’ll need:

1 cup dried chickpeas, washed and cooked OR 1 can chickpeas

3 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp tahini

2 tbsp olive oil

1 medium clove garlic (or to taste, I used two)

1/2 tsp salt

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

3-5 tbsp water (I used 3)

1/4 cup kalamata olives, pitted and chopped

1/4 cup green olives, pitted and chopped

3-4 sun-dried tomatoes, dehydrated and sliced, OR 2 tbsp oil-packed sun dried tomatoes

A food processor

Get chickpeas ready (either by soaking/boiling them, or removing them from the can and rinsing them REALLY good).

Next, put a small pot of water on the stove to boil (unless using oil-packed sun dried tomatoes).  Boil sun dried tomatoes for two minutes.

Meanwhile, roughly chop all the olives.  When the sun dried tomatoes have finished cooking, slice into strips.

Put the chickpeas, 3 tbsp lemon juice, tahini, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and 1 tbsp water into the food processor.  Blend until smooth.  Add a tbsp or so of water to get the consistency that you want.

When you’ve got the hummus to the consistency that you like, toss in the olives and sun dried tomatoes, and blend until hummus is well combined but the olives and tomatoes are still a little chunky.  Taste, and add any extra lemon juice, salt or pepper that you think it might need.

If you love olives, you will LOVE this hummus.  It’s a bit embarrassing because when I make this for friends I end up eating half the bowl to myself…  Once I start I just can’t stop.  It’s amazing with tonnes of different veggies, and even tortilla chips.  It comes highly recommended, even if you might end up gorging on this olivey goodness all to yourself…