Mr. Foodie Ain't Cheesy

Our resident food dude is out to destroy the cheese cube with a hummus recipe you'll only find online.

Dear Mr. Foodie,

Q. Would you please denounce cheese cubes for us? We’ve heard you don’t like them, and we’d like to see you have a tizzy in print.

A. Absolutely. Cheese cubes are the first refuge of perfunctory, unimaginative party-planners. They are sold in plastic zipper-bags at Sam’s Club for $7.22.

There are, so far as Foodie is aware, three species of cheese cube: Cheddar (of the mildest and most yellow—i.e., the least interesting variety); colbyjack (which is nearly flavorless, essentially offering the partygoer the salt and fatty texture of cheese) and pepper jack (if Foodie must eat cheese cubes, he goes for these little zingers).

How does one avoid using cheese cubes? Foodie suggests two routes:

1. Get better cheese. You can even do this at Sam’s Club, where they sell little three-packs of Crottin goat cheese, in different flavors, for about the same price as cheese cubes.
2. Eliminate cheese altogether in favor of savory dips. Plain hummus can be much cheaper to serve than cheese, if you keep a jar of tahini in your refrigerator. Check out Mr. Foodie's latest Hummus recipe below.
   

 

Mr. Foodie’s Latest Hummus Recipe

4 cloves garlic, roasted
1 roasted red pepper
juice of 2 small limes
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 can of chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained
3 tablespoons tahini (sesame paste)
1 teaspoon sea salt
one-half bunch cilantro leaves (about 1 cup)

1. Roast red pepper and garlic together. Place on a baking sheet in an oven set to 475ºF for about 7 minutes. Then turn the heat up to broil. When blackened spots and blisters appear on red pepper, it’s roasted. Place in a plastic zipper-bag and let cool, then pull off the skin with your fingers. You can get the pepper almost-cooled while you do the other steps on this recipe.

2. Rinse or wash the rest of the vegetable ingredients. In a food processor, add chickpeas, cilantro, garlic, lime juice, olive oil, tahini, sea salt. Whirl to purée and mix thoroughly. When red pepper is cooled, add it, too. You can either puree the pepper completely, or press the pulse button so your hummus has red-pepper chunks in it.

3. Serve with Stacy’s Simply Naked Sea Salt Pita Chips (from Boston via Sam’s Club), veggies. Top the hummus with some extra cilantro leaves and olive oil, if you like.

It’s not cheesy at all!