Relationships require maintenance. While levels of required attention and affection vary across types of relationships – a romantic relationship in the early stage requires much more attention than, say, an online flirtationship – the requirement is usually about the same within each type. Incidentally, marriage and/or (the slash, depending on your opinion of “marriage”) family require the relationship maintenance equivalent of a Toyota. And/or an Alfa Romeo.
With friendships, though, maintenance needs vary almost as widely, if not more widely, than all the other relationships combined.
On the one end, you have your BFF who expects you to call the minute you wake up, pix msg your day's outfit so the two of you don't clash, meet her for lunch, hold her hand during her botox appointment, filter through boys' profiles, mix her a cocktail, be her wingman, hold her hair back, and all the while you have actually been on the phone giving her the minute-by-minute, as-it-happens breakdown of your day. All nineteen waking hours of the day. Every day. That's a high maintenance friendship.
I've had my fair share of high maintenance friendships over my lifetime. Saying "my fair share" makes it sound as if high maintenance friendships were a bad thing; not necessarily, though I have, on occasion, wondered how long I could maintain (wait, is this how guys feel about girls?).
High maintenance, by definition, simply means that it requires a lot of constant, consistent work. You can't let it go. If a short period of time goes by without so much as a "hello," there will have to be the inevitable catch up over Asian chicken salad with dressing on the side for lunch. As life and work force you to reschedule then postpone then reschedule again, The Catch Up Lunch just looms larger and longer with a backlog of "stuff." You start to dread The Catch Up Lunch because it's going to also take coffee and dessert and three hours of shopping to get through 12 weeks' worth of every single teeny tiny little thing that has happened from getting the best massage evar at a spa in Monterey to the distastrophe of Memorial Day weekend, in chronological order.
Of course, social media are making high maintenance relationships obsolete. Or far too easily frenetic. Can't tell which.
On the other end of the friendship maintenance scale, you have your Ryan. My Ryan and I have been friends ever since I took his breath away at an ice cream social first semester of freshman year at Cal. Over the many, many, (goddamitweareold) many years we've been friends, we have never lived in the same city, spent more than half a day at a time together, or called each other on a regular, frequent basis. However, when Ryan and I do find the time for lunch or a cocktail or a late night phone call, it's easy. There is no long, drawn out Catch Up, no wasting time with mutual information exchange. We do get the obligatory "Married?" "No." "Kids?" "No, or at least none that I know of" out of the way, but then it's either simply conversation for the sake of the conversation that seems to perfectly pick up where last we left off 4 months ago or, as is more often the case as of late, my sobbing unintelligibly about my shattered heart. I know that if I needed to, I could speed (up the I-5 for 6 hours!) up to San Francisco to escape for a few days and Ryan would let me torture him with my post break-up hysterics and bloggers' hygiene.
Ryan and I have a low maintenance friendship. It's not better than a high maintenance friendship, nor is it worse. Just different.
Low maintenance relationship is sort of what I need right now. Come to my rescue in crisis. No need to explain where I've been, what I've been doing, who I've been doing (oops, did I blog that out loud?). No questions. Just jumping right back into the conversation, picking up, as it were, where we left off.
So, let’s try this again, shall we? Our low maintenance, low pressure, stress-free blog relationship? It's been a while, so I'm just easing into it with a simple starter...
Most recipes for hummus include tahini, a sesame paste. There is nothing inherently wrong with tahini except that I don't use it often enough, so when I buy even the smallest 12- or 16-ounce jar of tahini, I end up wasting a large volume of it after it expires. That would be okay if we were talking about say, $2 mayonnaise, but tahini, at least the good kind, is expensive, and last I checked, I can hardly afford a $700 billion bailout, let alone a jar of tahini.
Hummus with No Tahini Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 can chickpeas/garbanzo beans you can soak and cook dried beans, use the method here
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- juice from ½ lemon
- ½ teaspoon salt plus more to taste
- handful of chopped fresh parsley
- paprika to taste optional
Instructions
- Drain bean juice from garbanzo beans. Just the idea of bean juice is gross enough, but now I've had to type it out. Twice. Gross.
- Process garlic clove in a food processor until it looks finely chopped. It seems weird to waste all that small electrical appliance energy on a single clove of garlic when you could chop it more finely by hand, but you have to use the food processor eventually, and besides, you won't lose any garlic essence during transfer from cutting board via knife.
- Add the can of garbanzo beans to the garlic clove in the food processor, sans bean juice (that's also sans can for any of the noobs in the back row) along with olive oil, lemon juice, and salt.
- Process until the garbanzo beans are pureed to the consistency you want. For a smoother consistency, puree longer, and add (a little at a time) more lemon juice and/or olive oil. But be careful: oil is oil.
- Add parsley at the end and pulse until parsley is just chopped, salt (if necessary) and paprika to taste.
- Garnish with a drizzle of oilve oil, additional paprika, and serve with toasted pita wedges or chips (my choice).
Doo'ite says
Making the best of bland?
dave says
What a nice catch-up. Not too long or too loaded, and no guilt involved. Just a refreshing delicious moment once more.
But then again, just like preparing hummus, I'm easy.
dave says
What a nice catch-up. Not too long or too loaded, and no guilt involved. Just a refreshing delicious moment once more.
But then again, just like preparing hummus, I'm easy.
Ima Wurdibitsch says
I love homemade hummus. I love spice, too, so I'll usually put a combination of some of the following in the food processor with the juiceless beans and other ingredients: jalepeno, roasted red pepper, cayenne, sriracha.
SunJun says
As always, you inspire me to eat; this time, I've got to go down to the pita place in the lobby for some hummus. What a great way to ease back in.
LunaCafe says
Sarah, bless your heart. So glad you are back.
Nila Rosa says
Homemade hummus is the best.
I've known some people to substitute in peanut butter for tahini. I personally can't get down with tahini. The taste is a bit bitter, the color is weird, and it's pretty pricey. 3 strikes and it's out.
FranMag says
I'm sure @tastejudging was talking about someone else's hummus, because yours is quite photogenic!
FranMag says
I'm sure @tastejudging was talking about someone else's hummus, because yours is quite photogenic!
H. C. says
Yeah, I would sub out tahini too only because I don't think I'll do anything with it asides from making hummus and baba ghanouj, and I don't like either *that* much.
And welcome back :)
u says
So, married since your last post? Any kids? ;)
katrina says
Nice! All this time I've been waiting to remember to buy tahini and (smacks forehead), NOT ONCE did it remotely occur to me to make it without the tahini. You are brilliant!
katrina says
Nice! All this time I've been waiting to remember to buy tahini and (smacks forehead), NOT ONCE did it remotely occur to me to make it without the tahini. You are brilliant!
Olga says
I make my own hummus quite often! Love adding different things to it: roasted peppers, sundried tomatoes, roasted squash, etc, etc, etc: so much more creative and cheaper than store-bought.
Anna says
I always wanted to try to make my own hummus and your recipe sounds so easy to do. Enjoyed Olga's comment about adding different things, like the roasted peppers. Definitely going to give this a try.
born says
Haha don't i know it. That looks great, hummus is one of my all time favourite dips! :)
Garden Solar
Anonymous says
Skip the parsley and try it with cilantro, stems and all, and some jalapenos (minus the seeds if you don't like hot) blended in.
If you make it with tahini, just pour off some (most?) of that separated oil and use the solids. Might have to thin out the tahini with more lemon juice or (depending on lemon's tartness) a combo of juice & water.
Anonymous says
Skip the parsley and try it with cilantro, stems and all, and some jalapenos (minus the seeds if you don't like hot) blended in.
If you make it with tahini, just pour off some (most?) of that separated oil and use the solids. Might have to thin out the tahini with more lemon juice or (depending on lemon's tartness) a combo of juice & water.
Sarah J. Gim says
i'll skip the cilantro but LOVE the idea of jalapenos in hummus
Cindy says
Another idea: since the tahini you are subbing out is sesame paste, use sesame oil instead of olive. Thanks for the tahini-less recipe. I have no patience for trying to find some to buy, and then watching the part I don't use get old in my fridge.
sheba says
This is great am making this tonight
Susan says
Been looking for a tahini-less hummus recipe. Sounds great! Thanks for posting this
Jodi says
I'm all a-twitter about trying this! I also think that, based merely on this post, I have just fallen in love with you. Alas!
A! says
i've made this 3 times. thanx
Colleen says
You have a fun sense of humor thanks for the recipe and the laugh. :)
mirz123 says
I've been making hummus for years without tahini. Saw it on a cooking show for kids years ago. Thanks for reminding me I'm due to make a batch soon.
brightstarlit says
I've never made Hummus with Tahini because it's so expensive. I tried this recipe as well, it was ok, no offense. I even bought sesame oil which was $5 my rationale being I won't use tahini $9 for anything other than hummus, yet I could use sesame oil in many things.
It still didn't taste right! Maybe I am the only crazy one here but no matter how much I try to fight it, I don't think hummus is the same or half as good without tahini! I guess I will have to bite the bullet and buy some :)
Vhitch says
Easy to make and very nice consistency...delish!
Anaalicia H says
i made this recipe tonight. and it was awsome..... i didnt add the parsley... and i added a bit of cayenne pepper... yum :D recipe was also a fun read
Patty Kennedy says
Why dry garbanzo beans? Much less expensive! Not much work, especially with a pressure cooker.
Vivian Darkbloom says
This was delicious! Thank you!