I absolutely love hosting get togethers! Maybe its the southerner in me, but I love the chance to hang out with people and cook for them! I try to make the appetizer and main course cohesive, and then serve a small dessert. The friends we had come over this week are also from the south, and are fellow Troy grads that my husband works with. After going through my cookbooks and scouring the internet I decided to do a hummus served with a lamb tagine. The hummus is pretty traditional, but instead of being made with chickpeas we made it with Great Northern beans. It was super easy to make with our food processor, and we made it the day before so that all we had to do was set it out and slice up vegetables. I also made a laffa bread to go with it, because who doesn’t love hot bread? We popped open this weeks wine, a Grenache-Syrah rosé to drink with the hummus. We’ve had this rosé before for a Bachelor night (the show, of course!) Our friends don’t drink, so instead of opening another bottle of wine we swapped over to sweet tea for dinner and played several rounds of a game called Pandemic. I’m focusing on the hummus for this post, but will also post the lamb tagine as a bonus!

Hummus

• Two 15-oz cans of Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted (in a dry pan for about 5 minutes)
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp roasted garlic (roasted in the oven with a little butter and salt until brown)
• 1 tsp garlic salt
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• parsley

In a food processor pulse the beans, half the pine nuts, lemon juice, garlic salt, and salt together. Slowly add in your olive oil until smooth. You can add more lemon juice if you need it, or more olive oil if it’s not as smooth as you like.

Garnish with parsley and the rest of the toasted pine nuts.

I served this with slices of cucumber, baby carrots, radishes, sliced red pepper, and laffa bread. (recipe below)

Lafa Bread

• 7 cups of bread flour
• 1 packet dry rapid rise yeast
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp salt
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 3 cups warm water

Combine your dry ingredients into a mixing bowl with the dough hook attached. Add your oil and water, and allow to blend until the dough is smooth and elastic. Place your dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover, and allow to rise for an hour or until doubled in size. When it has doubled, punch it down and divide into 10ish equal sized pieces. Make them into balls, place them on an oiled cookie sheet, and allow to rest for 10 minutes. While they rest, heat your grill pan. I used a cast iron grill pan because I wanted those pretty grill marks. I put a little oil on the top and bottom of each dough ball before I rolled it out into a thin layer. Cook on both sides until done. It doesn’t take long, maybe 2 minutes on each side? Serve hot with hummus.

Grenache-Syrah rosé

This rosé is one of my favorites. It is so light and easy to drink, that its perfect for sitting around talking with friends or watching trashy TV shows like The Bachelor. The bottle itself is beautiful, with a glass cork and a rose bottom. It really highlights the lovely color of the
rosé. It is not as sweet as you would originally think, especially since people think rosé = sweet. This one is a little on the dry side, but super smooth and drinkable for a long time. Even my husband, who doesn’t typically like rosé enjoys this one! Luckily for us, it’s easy to find at Costco.