Just Try It
My Food Philosophy
To me, food is grounding: it's a means to join with family and friends despite how messy our lives feel. It is coming together to share and celebrate our culture and it is using what is within our means to support local farms and eat meat free. It is eating intuitively, listening to my body and letting go of shame and guilt surrounding diet culture to instead enjoy food that feeds the soul.
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2019
2013-2015 ish
We have a tradition of eating this giant sweet roti together.
I've been fortunate to spend time with my Aunties and family in Malaysia and through them I've gained a deeper appreciate for foods from my own and also different cultures. Whether it was spoiling me with mango or roti desserts, seafood, or duck feet (before I switched over haha...), they always communicated how much they cared through wanting to provide for me.
Another influential person to my food philosophy has been my grandma who lives in Vancouver. Every Thursday(before the pandemic) my family would go to her house to eat with her and my cousins. Though she is not the most gushy or emotional person, her strength, independence and desire to love on us by bringing our family together inspires me.
Whether through disagreements, misunderstandings or feelings of frustration, good food has always been able to send a message of "I want to share something with you". And that's been powerful for me and my family and I love celebrating that.
Some Backstory...
Here's a photo from around 10 years ago of my family with my aunties. (I am in the pink)
This is a photo of me and my grandma on my dads side.
Now onto the Recipe:
A Simple but Superb Hummus!
We have yet to discuss another major influence of my food philosophy: my mom! Growing up, she has always made an effort to garden and feed my sister and I whole foods. Some of my fondest memories have been eating and harvesting carrots, snap peas, and pears from moms garden. Moreover, she has always found a way to sneak in little healthy bits like avocado into muffins or squash into mac and cheese that she fed us when we were younger. One of my favourite snacks to this day is chick peas, probably because I ate them so much then.
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We are going to be trying a hummus recipe today! It is super simple (good for someone like me) but has a rich earthy flavour from the chick peas and tahini.
It tastes especially great when you use dried chick peas instead of canned ones, like I did here. My fellow herbivores, this is a great recipe for you!!
Find the link to the recipe here :)
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The Process
Spoiler alert!! Here's what the final dish looks like, keep reading for the instructions.
First I juiced a medium sized lemon and measured out a 1/4 cup of tahini (Shown on left). And then, in a food processor, I pulsed these two ingredients for a minute.
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Then, I added 2 tbsp of olive oil, 1 clove of minced garlic, 1/2 tsp of cumin and 1/2 tsp of salt to the mixture and pulsed it for 1 minute, scraping at the sides. On the right is how it looked!
After, I added 1 and 1/2 cups of chickpeas, half a portion at a time, pulsing them for about a minute fo reach half.
To get rid of chunks, add about 2-3+ tbsp of water and blend until its smooth.
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To plate or store your hummus, pour a bit of olive oil and paprika with it and dig in!!
You're all set!
Go ahead and try it
Here's my mom's garden. She gets 100% of the credit.
Here's my mom's garden. She gets 100% of the credit.