recipe blog

The best homemade hummus (&how to boil your own chickpeas)

A few weeks ago I was in Israel, together with VibeIsrael, where I got to try some of the amazing food that Israel has to offer. We were predominantly in Tel Aviv, which is known as one of the vegan capitals of the world, and I can say that there is a reason for that. If you want to know where we ate or are in need of some recommendations of places to eat at if you are in Tel Aviv, then i have a post coming up real soon with some tips and recommendations.

We only visited a few places, so of course I can’t say that all places are amazing for vegan food. However, we tried both gourmet food, fast food, market places, to go pizzas, brunch places and different restuarants which all made amazing food, so I can only say good things about the food.

Of course, it is worth mentioning that it is expensive in Tel Aviv, so even if it is an amazing place for plantbased food… you might want to come there ready to spend money as you will want to try all the amazing places.

While I was there I got very inspired with all the different foods. So many different spices that are used in the food, which I want to try incorporate into some of my future recipes. However, one standard food which could be found almost anywhere was hummus. And you know I love hummus….. it is a staple in my diet and meals. But now, after trying hummus in Israel, storebought hummus just isn’t the same… and I want my own homemade version to taste even better.

So I thought it was finally time to update my hummus recipe, also sharing tips on how to prepare dried chickpeas yourself so you can make a large batch of hummus for yourself.

Below, I will also share 2 other variations of hummus you can try.

The tahini I am using in the recipe comes from Al Araz, and I got the tahini while I was in Israel…. Which makes it feel a little more authenthic.

Tips when preparing your own chickpeas:

The first is to soak them for atleast 10-12 hours. This is important as raw chickpeas have lectins, so called anti nutrients, which you don’t want to consume and can be toxic for humans. So by soaking legumes you decrease the amount of anti nutrients they have and therefore make them edible. Bubbles and foam will begin to appear during the soaking time, so you can change the water after half the time If you like.

Tips, I usually soak mine before I go to bed and then boil in the morning. Or I soak them in the morning before I head to school and then in the evening when I am home again, they will have soaked for long enough.

You can add 1 tsp baking soda in the water when they are soaking, this helps them to soften up more, which is what you want when making hummus.

Before boiling the chickpeas, you need to pour away the water that they have soaked in and rinse for 2-3 minutes to make sure they are clean.

Fill a large pot with the chickpeas and pour over water that covers the chickpeas and a little more. Bring to the stove and bring to a boil. Allow the chickpeas to boil for about 5-10 minutes, before lowering the heat to medium and covering the pot with a lid and allowing to simmer for 60-90 minutes. Note, a foam may form when the chickpeas are boiling which you should remove.

Tip, after about 40-50 minutes, add half a tbsp baking soda. This will soften the chickpeas. You can also add some onion to the water to give the chickpeas an onion flavour.

Also note, if you remove the “skin” from the chickpeas once they are cooked it will give much smoother and leaner hummus. This may take some time to do. But you can place the chickpeas in a plastic bag and sort of “roll” the chickpeas on a hard surface and that can help to loosen the skins off the chickpeas… but it is a time consuming process, but it is worth it.

Key ingredients when making a good hummus:

Good quality olive oil, which of course may not be easy to find. Fresh garlic. Good quality tahini, use the runny kind. Fresh lemon juice. Salt and pepper.

Spices: Ground cumin, coriander, sumac

And of course… what mixer you use is important. If you don’t use a high quality mixer it won’t be as smooth. My mixer isn’t as high quality as i may like, hence why my hummus isn’t 100% smooth. But nonetheless it is tasty.

Note: No, I am not saying hummus is an Israeli food, it is a middle eastern food. Certain food may originiate in certain countries, however it does not necessarily belong to a certain country either. And I am aware that the food in Israel is a mixture from different cultures, so hummus may originate in another country, but you still find a lot of it in Israel.

How to make the best hummus:

(250 grams) cooked chickpeas (c.a 2 cans). Prefarbly with no “skin”

1/4 cup (60 ml) fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup (60 ml) runny tahini (recipe to make your own tahini)

2 garlic cloves, minced

2-3 tablespoons (30-45 ml) olive oil (more for serving)

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

Salt to taste

2 to 3 tablespoons (30 to 45 ml) water or aquafaba(should be cold)

Optional: Add sumac or coriander to the mix or on top for serving

Serve with some fresh corianer or parsley, pita bread or why not some fried tofu

How to:

Add the chickpeas and tahini to your food processor. Begin mixing for 1 minute before adding the rest of the ingredients.

Note, start off with only half the liquid (oil and water/aquafaba) and add more as necessary. Keep mixing as it will take a few minutes to get it fully creamy…. don’t be scared to add more olive oil as that adds flavour.

The best is to eat it fresh, but it does store in the fridge up to 5 days if stored in an airtight jar!

Adpations to this recipe:

Roast 2-3 red peppers in the oven for 20 minutes at 200c. Note, drizzle some olive oil and salt over the peppers before hand. Add to the hummus mix. Roasted red pepper hummus | Recipe

You can aslo make beetroot hummus by adding 2-3 precooked beetroots. Note, y ou will have to add more liquid. Beetroot hummus & different types of hummus recipe

Or make some roasted carrot hummus. Similar to the roasted red pepper recipe. I.e chop carrots, drizzle over some oil and salt. Bake in the oven for c.a 30 minutes and then add to the originial hummus mix. Note, the liquid amount will have to be increased. (Roasted carrot hummus | Recipe

Other hummus adaptions:

Sweet potato hummus | Vegan recipe

November 22, 2019November 22, 2019

Its a healthy lifestyle2 Comments

Fried rice paper crisps/tacos | Vegan |Glutenfree

I am the type of person who sticks to the same foods over and over. I don’t always feel like varying my meals and i am fine eating the same meals agin and again.

However i also enjoy trying new foods and combos. And a while ago i saw someone fry rice paper… i can’t remember where i saw it or who i saw do it, so unfortunately i can’t give credit to anyone. But ever since then i have wanted to give it a try.

And on Friday it was finally time. I had made rice paper rolls and had rice paper left to use and so i decided to give frying them a try – and i am glad i did.

I poured some oil in a frying pan so that it covered the whole frying pan. C.a 0,5-1cm. I heated it to medium/high and let the oil heat up – but not so hot that it began to boil and bubble.

And then i put the rice paper in (careful not to burn myself) and within 2 second it had crisped up. With a fork i picked up the rice paper crisp and placed on a plate with some paper underneath. And repeated with the rice of my rice paper.

The rice paper doesn’t taste of aything so i poured some salt over after wards to give it flavour.

**Note, don’t pour the leftover oil down the sink as it can cause problems and cause blockage. So i poured the rest of the oil in a jar i was going to throw away and then into the bin!

You could cut the rice paper into small pieces and make crisps out of them. But i decided to make tacos out of mine.

So i stuffed the rice paper “shells/tacos” with red cabbage, sun dried tomatoes, fried tofu, chickpeas, sweet corn, avocado, vegan feta cheese and some mustard.

And i can say it was SUPER TASTY. Even if i did overstuff them.. but then again i do the same thing with regular tacos. The shells didn’t actually fall apart, it was just that i overfilled mine.

I can say i would 10/10 eat this again.

And i usually get stomach problems and discomfort from food with alot of oil but i didn’t get it from these rice paper tacos (not so sure what to call them!). So that is a plus point for this meal, hahah!

Let me know what you think about these “non recipe-recipes” 🙂

March 10, 2019

Its a healthy lifestyle1 Comment

Pasta carbonara with vegan bacon!

If you watched my latest Youtube video – CLICK HERE – you will have seen that i tried a new product which is “vegan bacon”. The package makes it look not so appetizing, but it was actually really good. And i was surprised that i liked it so much.

However i can now understand why it has pretty much been sold out in all the stores i have looked in – trying to find it again. I didn’t even know i wanted or needed this product in my life, hahaha.

Crazy how much the vegan alternatives are improving and expanding!

The vegobacon is made from seitan, i.e vital wheat gluten, so for those with gluten allergy they can’t eat it. Which kind of sucks… because i think about the meat eaters who love their bacon and also are gluten allergic/intolerant… but maybe in the future there will come a similar alternative but without gluten!

I do have to admit, i am so lucky that i don’t have any allergies or intolerances. Because when i was filming the video and trying the products i realised i hadn’t even checked to see what it was made of because i am not allergic to soya, wheat, nuts or anything like that. All i needed to know was if it was vegan or not. So in that sense i am very lucky as i can eat eat all the vegan options.

I am not a huge spaghetti lover, it is definitely not something i buy or eat alot of. (However i do have a recipe for a super tasty lentil bolognaise with spaghetti, recipe HERE). However, i thought it would be fitting to make a vegan carbonara!

In the past i have tried making a sort of carbonara using aubergine bacon, RECIPE. Though in all honesty, it is kind of an embarrassment to call it a carbonara as it didn’t have any of the components that a “real” carbonara has.

And granted, this recipe neither has eggs, cheese, bacon or oil (or cream for the recipes that have cream).

However, this is a veganized version and even if i may not have had carbonara in years…. this was still VERY GOOD. And i loved the touch of the smoky, crispy vegan bacon!

Recipe time?

Ingredients:

Spaghetti of choice – i used bean pasta

1 package (120g) vegan bacon. (Or you could use tofu)

c.a 500ml plantbased cream

1/2 small yellow onion

1/2 tsp liquid smoke

3-4 tbsp nutritional yeast

1-2 tbsp parsley

Oil for frying

Salt and pepper

*Optional, cornstarch or flour to thicken the sauce if necessary

Optional: 1-2 tsp soya sauce (for colour and taste)

How to:

Boil the spgahetti according to instructions. Once boiled, pour away the water.

In the mean time, fry the vego bacon (or tofu) in some oil until crispy. Then set aside.

In the frying pan fry onion (diced) in some oil. Once golden brown add the plantbased cream along with liquid smoke, nutritional yeast, salt and pepper as well as some parsley. Allow to simmer and thicken. Do a taste test and adjust the seasoning according to preferance.

Once the sauce has thickened slightly add the pasta and mix until combined. Finally add the vegobacon along with some extra parsley and mix until combined.

Serve warm and enjoy!

If you try this recipe, don’t forget to let me know and tag me on instagram: Itsahealthylifestyle

February 20, 2019February 20, 2019

Its a healthy lifestyle4 Comments

5 new air fryer recipes | Cauliflower wings, sweet potato fries, pizza rolls, tortilla chips, apple pie

After my previous video and post, HERE, showing you 4 airfryer recipes, i was excited to try several more! And i can tell you.. the experimenting isn’t done yet. I am thinking about other ideas i can try.

So 3 of the recipes were ones i knew would work, and 2 other ones i wasn’t fully sure if they would work or not. But the results turned out super good. So even if they are easy to make in the oven as well… if you don’t have access to an oven you can make them in an airfryer 🙂

You can watch the video when i make these recipes here:

Sweet potato fries

The best sweet potato fries are made when you 1) Peel and slice into thin/equal sized fries. Then leave in cold water for about an hour. Then let them dry.

Place in a bowl, add some oil, seasoning and a little cornstarch and mix. Then bake in the oven (or airfryer) at 200 for c.a 20-25 miuntes. Turning them over/shaking them after c.a 15 minutes.

Of course you could skip the whole water and cornstarch part and just drizzle over some oil and seasoning, but in my opinion, the most crispy fries are when you do those first two steps!

Cauliflower wings

Cauliflower wings is one of my favourite snacks/meal ideas. It is also very easy to make in the oven. You can also make cauliflower wings many different ways, so you can look at some of my previous recipes and choose your favourite. (HERE) And it is just to do the same as the directions, but to heat in the airfryer at 180 degrees celsius.

Also, you can put some baking paper to avoid that the sauce (or bread crumbs) drips to the bottom of the airfryer. But it also works well without.

Just note, that they are best eaten warm and within a few hours of making, because otherwise they will lose their crunch.

You can make the cauliflower wings with just sauce, or with a batter and then sauce, or with a batter and breadcrumbs. So whatever you prefer! You can look at my previous recipes HERE.

Bake in the airfryer for 15-20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius.

Tortilla chips

Sometimes you crave something salty and crispy, but don’t have any chips at home… then you could make tortilla chips in the airfryer. I have to be honest – I think they turn out better in the oven.

It takes a lot longer to make them in the airfryer, as you can’t put as many in at the same time… not to mention that they didn’t turn out as crispy as they do in the oven.

However, they were still tasty – just not as tasty as the oven version. But if you want to make them in the airfryer, then follow THIS recipe and bake them in the airfryer at 180 degrees celsius for 5-7 minutes (don’t forget to turn over/shake them after half the time).

Pizza Rolls

Pizza rolls in the airfryer was an experiment, which I wasn’t so sure if it would work or not. And granted, I think I should have made two batches. I.e instead of put all of them in at the same time, I should have put half of them in so that they had more space to expand and crisp up.

However the result was still delicious. Granted, it works just as well in the oven – but if you don’t have access to an oven, then these ar a delicious snack.

You can follow THIS recipe, and preheat the airfryer to 180 degrees celsius and bake for 5-7 minutes. (Note, use baking paper underneath & don’t overfill the airfryer!)

(The filling i used to make my pizza rolls was vegan mince meat, sweet corn, taco sauce, vegan cream cheese & spices).

Apple pie puff pastries:

Just like the puff pastries, this was an experiment which turned out super delicious.

Use half a puffpastry sheet and cut into 4 equal sized pieces.

Dice an apple and fry in some coconut oil or spread with some cinnamon and sweetener. Once soft, add a little to two of the puff pastry slices. Then place another puff pastry sheet ontop of one of the sheets with filling, and press down. (As if you were making poptarts).

Bake in the airfryer at 180 degrees C for 5-7 minutes, and turn over and then bake for another 4-5 minutes.

January 25, 2019January 25, 2019

Its a healthy lifestyle4 Comments

4 air fryer recipes: Sweet potato tots, falafel, crispy tofu & roasted chickpeas

After almost a month of owning an air fryer i thought it was finally time to experiment and see what else i could make in it, that wasn’t just vegetables or potatoes.

To start off with i made 4 rather simple recipes, which you can easily make at home as well! All the recipes work in the oven as well, but take longer time… and i am sure you can skip the oil as coating, but that just adds crunch according to me.

I will of course be experimenting more and seeing what other recipes i can make 🙂

I think an airfryer is great… whether you have an oven or not, but also an awesome appliance if you don’t have an oven (like some student apartments).

Video of me making these recipes:

YouTube Video

Recipes:

Falafel:

400g chickpeas (can used “raw” – but soaked atleast 12 hours, or use precooked from a can – c.a 1,5 cans)

1 small onion

2 cloves garlic

c.a 1/2 tbsp flour

Seasoning: Salt, pepper, parsley, cilantro

Optional: Oil

How to:

Heat the airfryer to c.a 195 degrees celsius.

Mix everything together in a food processor, and mix until combined but not overly smooth. (I.e it should not turn into hummus!). The better food processor you have, the quicker it goes. (It took me some time and had to do in half batches!)

Form into small falafel shaped balls (if the mixture is right, they will be easy to form and will hold their shape). Place into the air fryer – not over filling, c.a 8-10 depending on how big your airfryer is. Bake in the airfryer for 15 minutes, checking on them after half the time and moving them around a bit.

Repeat if you have more falafels!

Sweet potato tots:

1 medium sweet potato – boiled and mashed.

c.a 25-30ml bread crumbs

1/3 tbsp flour

Salt & pepper

Seasoning of choice

Oil

How to:

Begin by peeling the sweet potato and chopping into small cubes. Boil until soft, then mash and allow to cool.

Once the sweet potato mash is cool, add the bread crumbs, flour and seasoning. Mix and then form into small cube/oval shapes. Drizzle over a little oil.

Heat the airfryer to 200 degrees celsius and place the tots into the air fryer – don’t over fill. I.e you will have to make 2 batches.

Bake for 6 minutes before turning the tots over and baking for another 6-7 minutes. (They should be slightly crunchy on the outside when done!).

And repeat with the second batch.

*Note, eat when warm as they won’t keep their crunch for too long. So don’t make more than you will be eating as they won’t last so long being stored in the fridge!

Battered and breaded tofu:

1/2 bloack tofu – pressed of water.

C.a 100ml bread crumbs.

5-6 tbsp flour mixed with water (or plantbased milk) & seasoning to form a sort of pancake batter.

Optional: MARINADE. (I didn’t marinate my tofu before hand, but i recommend that you do!)

Recipe for homemade BBQ sauce

How to:

Optional: Pressing and marinating your tofu for c.a 2 hours in the fridge. Or skip this part and go straight to the next step, but then you will have to really season the flour mix.

Chop the tofu into small squares – or desired shape. In one bowl/plate pour the bread crumbs, in another bowl mix together the flour, water and seasoning until you have formed a pancake like consistency.

First cover the tofu in the flour mix and then roll in the bread crumbs. Place on a plate and repeat.

Heat the airfryer to 180 degrees celsius. Place the tofu pieces into the air fryer – not overingfilling, and bake c.a 12-15 minutes. Shaking/moving the tofu pieces after half the time.

Note, these are also best eaten warm as they are then most crispy. They can be stored in the fridge, but will lose their crisp.

Crispy, roasted chickpeas!

1 can chickpeas, c.a 230g

Seasoning of choice, ex. paprika/garlic powder/Onion powder/pre made spice mix

Oil

How to:

Pour over some seasoning and spices over the chickpeas as well as a drizzle of oil, c.a 1/2 tbsp or as much/little as necessary. Mix until combined and all the chickpeas are coated.

Preheat the airfryer to 200 degrees celsius. Pour in the chickpeas and bake for 15- 20 minutes. Check on them after half the time and shake them around.

You may hear some “popping” sounds but that is fine. They are most crispy when warm and freshly baked!

You can vary the seasoning of these endlessly!

There you have 4 simple recipes you can make in your airfryer 🙂 And of course, more recipes (& videos) will be coming soon! Let me know if you like these types of videos/posts!

January 20, 2019January 20, 2019

Its a healthy lifestyle2 Comments