Healthy mezze platter with home made Hummus

Birthday dinner at home! How good is that? :) After a long weekend of eating rich yummy foods, I thought it would be appropriate to having something lighter so I decided to make hummus - to be eaten with veges, the bread I made yesterday and some marinated herring which I bought 2 days ago. Dont you think the mezze platter looks awesome? It sure tasted very good.

So what's in the platter? Carrot sticks, celery sticks, baby tomatoes, my cheater's version of guacamole, store-bought marinated herring, homemade hummus and homemade wholemeal bread (with rolled oats, linseed & sunflower seed). 

You can buy the marinated herring from Woolies, Coles or any specialty deli such as Thomas Dux etc. It is usually placed in the chiller, same shelf with the smoked salmon, smoked trout, marinated anchovies isle. 

How to make the hummus?

• Drain canned chickpeas (about 400g) and place them into a blender/food processor
• Then add, 3tbs olive oil, 3tbs lemon juice, 1tbs sea salt, 1tsp sugar, 1.5tbs finely chopped garlic, 1.5tbs tahini (try to use unhulled tahini for more nutrients) and 2-3tbs water
• Blend everything, check the taste, feel free to add more lemon juice/olive oil/salt according to your taste
• Serve hummus - make a small well in the middle and fill it with some olive oil

How to make my cheater's version of guacamole?

• Use 1 ripe but firm avocado - scoop and cut into cubes
• Finely chop red spanish onion - add to avocados
• Add 1tbs lemon juice, a pinch of sea salt and some cracked black pepper
• That's it! No tomatoes and it's not mashed up. This is yummy with the marinated herring on bread!

As for the carrots, tomatoes and celery, cut them up however you like as long as you can dip them into the hummus. You can choose to add other types of veges such as boiled cauliflower or broccoli, both would work really well with hummus.

The hummus takes less than 10mins to make, so try making this at home and you avoid consuming the packaged hummus which contains emulsifiers, flavouring, starches/gums, coloring etc.

Cheers.