It’s a good day when your roses start blooming. Rosa rugosa, a little late this year but still the first to show up for the show, is her usual fragrant and beautiful self. This is a rose you must stop and smell, it will lure you, calm you down. The original wild rugosa from Japan, both the pink and white varieties grow beautifully from zones 2-9, repeat bloom, and not much bothers them, pests, diseases, not even a sandy beach where you often see them thrive. Other roses are just starting to open up as well, the irises are in full bloom, and the peonies have started their show, as the lupines begin to fade. The honeybees are all happy, and the butterflies are quite content to linger on our blossoms. It’s all amazing. Well, except for the blasted ticks, an ever-present source of concern, apprehension, and well-founded fear since we have a family member who has suffered years from Lyme disease and a close friend with alpha-gal disease. My husband was bit just this past week. The price of the beauty of nature, and a gift from the deer in our pastures. I think we need more natural predators, for the ticks not the deer, and I’ve thought of getting chickens, but we have too many foxes and coyotes and a couple of dogs they would drive crazy. So we tuck our pants into our boots and do a thorough check after gardening. Is that a freckle I never noticed before?
And, we’re off!
While a lot of plants got a late start, all of a sudden, it seems to be nearly impossible to get all the spring garden chores done. Rain and cold weather stole quite a few work days, and we’ve got lots more rain due this week. I’ll not complain about it, there’s too many places still in drought, but if it weren’t for my granddaughters and one of their friends, the weeds in my kitchen garden beds alone would be driving me crazy just about now.
Garden slaves
My children and grandchildren have all had their turns at weeding, and they all have done really well. My garden slaves, but there are usually rewards for their efforts. I remember when my daughter was a teenager and I put her to work in the perennial garden drowning Japanese beetles in soapy water. I sat in another part of the garden and heard her and her friend make a large ick sound with each plucked bug. After that day, she informed me that her beetle fee would be a nickel a bug. It was worth the paycheck, But, then I discovered the pheromone traps which work fairly well but not completely. I still needed to employ the kids, but on a smaller scale.
The season really begins
I’ve already harvested a bounty of lettuces, kale, radishes, sorrel, herbs of course, and some sprouting broccoli. My pole beans have popped through the ground and finally I got my tomato plants in the soil. It’s all good. My dad had two favorite crops in the garden, his beloved potatoes and tomatoes. For tomatoes, he always wanted to grow the big beefsteak varieties that take forever to come to picking stage. I deviate from his example and plant a couple of cherry tomato plants, a long keeper, and an early small variety that keeps me happy all summer. When my kids were young and our garden was vast, I grew six or seven varieties of potatoes and loved every single one, from Green Mountain to Ruby Crescent and Yellow Banana fingerlings. But with just the two of us most meals during the week, I am happy to let the farmers grow them now and stock up weekly or so all winter at the farm stand so I do not have to worry about storage.
Losing track of time
Sometimes when I’m busy outside in the garden this time of year, I don’t realize how much time has passed until I’m really ready for something in my stomach. On a busy day, when the early afternoon hungries arrive, more often than not, hummus is one of my go-to lunches. It’s quick, it’s handy, and it’s healthy.
Always on hand
My homemade is always in my refrigerator. Add some veggies, or maybe pita bread, a few crackers perhaps. I really enjoy it with cucumbers when they are in season and flavorful, our farmers are already well stocked with the baby ones now, and we’re all set. Or, you can tuck the hummus it in a wrap with a few veggies if you want something more substantial. Even if you don’t have it made up already, toss everything in the food processor and have it ready in about five minutes. Nothing to cook, reliable, tasty, but sometimes just a bit ho-hum. Now, serving up a boring meal when pressed for time is not necessarily a bad thing, the object is simply to feed the body something nutritious and move on. However, once in a while it is fun to take that same meal, twist it around, and make it feel special. Something worth lingering over. A reason to pause and really savor.
Stop yawning, it will be good
My granddaughter was with me for lunch recently, and although she loves hummus, I could tell the suggestion did not garner an exuberant response. I might have even seen a little eye roll. Because I had a few extra bits of time, I decided to surprise her.
The usual suspects
First, the hummus. I used all the usual ingredients, chickpeas, tahini, garlic, lemon, a dark toasted sesame oil, but I roasted the garlic first to deepen and sweeten the flavor. It really does make a difference. While I was at it, I roasted the vegetables too! Some lovely snap peas, carrots, and a sweet yellow bell pepper. Why stop there? I tossed some additional chickpeas in the oven to roast as well, to use as garnish and some for a later snacking.
Worth a little extra time
All in all, it didn’t really take that much longer to make, and the result was well worth the time and effort. My granddaughter agreed whole heartedly, a smile on her face! At least until I mentioned the weeds that were waiting for us.
Hummus with Roasted Garlic and Chickpeas
- Vegetables to dip into the hummus
- 4 or 5 cloves garlic
- 2 cups cooked chickpeas, yes you can use canned, or even another favorite bean
- Juice and zest of one lemon
- 1/2 cup tahini
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. cumin
- 1/2 tsp. hot Hungarian paprika
- About 2/3 cup water or cooking liquid
Heat your oven to 425 F., sand start with the roasted chickpeas below. When they are approaching done, spray a baking sheet with oil, and add the garlic cloves and veggies for roasting in a single layer. Think spring edible pod peas, new baby carrots, some colorful peppers, baby corn, kohlrabi, spring turnips, or other favorite vegetables. Roast for 10 minutes, turn, and keep an eye on them at this point, especially the garlic. You will want them to keep a certain firmness, but with some color. You can also do this on the grill, or grill pan.
In a food processor, combine chickpeas, your roasted garlic cloves, lemon zest and juice, tahini, salt, cumin, and paprika. Pulse a few times, then add about a third of a cup of water and run for about a minute to combine. Drizzle in more water or cooking liquid until it is about the thickness you want, then process for a full two to three minutes, until light and fluffy. If you do this, it makes a big difference in texture.
To plate, place in a bowl and drizzle with a little olive oil and garnish with the roasted chickpeas, below, or some sesame seeds, for a crunchy element, or lemon zest to liven things up more. Sprinkle with more paprika or cumin, or add something that doesn’t even appear in the hummus such as chopped up tomatoes or olives. Olives are great here.
Serve with the roasted veggies.
Roasted Chickpeas
This is a quick, easy snack or topping for salads, hummus, casseroles, or even soup. If taking the time to make them, whip up a big batch so you have them on hand. You can make them your own by adding whatever seasoning you like. Beware, they can be addicting!
- 2 cups cooked chickpeas, or canned
- Olive oil
- Salt & pepper
- 1/2 tsp. Hungarian paprika, hot or sweet
Start this in the same 450-degree oven where you will roast the rest of the veggies.
Rinse chickpeas, drain well, and pat dry. Place on a rimmed baking sheet, and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Roast in the middle rack of the oven for 45 minutes or so, turning every 15 minutes, until the chickpeas are brown and well roasted. Don’t let them get too dark.
Remove from the oven and add seasoning of choice, the paprika, or any blend of spices or herbs you like such as curry seasoning, Italian seasoning, or a Southwest-type seasoning blend with cumin and chili powder. Use what you like to snack on, or what will work with other dishes.
Toss them around, then let cool.
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“Food is one of life’s greatest joys yet we’ve reached this really sad point where we’re turning food into the enemy, and something to be afraid of.” ~ Jamie Oliver
Rosa Rugosa
If I were a rose
I’d live at the beach.
You’d find me there –
Close to the ocean
Close to the sky.
I look as delicate as hope,
but I am firm,
and teach about survival.
I’m there, along the path.
Just look!
No one fusses over me.
Indeed, I’m easy to please!
I thrive on nothing
but baking sun and seawater,
sand and bitter winds,
disappointments and restraint.
Call me common and I’ll thank you
with a double gift,
fragrance and beauty.
(kindly,
overlook the thorns
they weren’t my idea).
I guard the ocean,
a curious job.
But I suspect, more fun
than climbing up a trellis.
That is, if I were a rose.
~ Dorothy Grover-Read August 2016
Yes please to all of this! I love hummus! I love roasted chick peas! And then toss in roasted and grilled veggies, oh yea! I am now officially hungry.
Your flowers are as pretty as can be. And so is the poem! 🥰🌹🥰
Thank you Nancy! ‘Tis the season of bowls of roses!
Lovely recipe, poem and roses!
Thank you Jan, all around!!!
Great recipe!
Thanks Sheree!
Oh, your hummus and veggie platter looks so delicious and I am starving for lunch! I have some of Trader Joe’s in the fridge but it’s not going to taste anything like yours, I’m afraid 😀 Beautiful poem, my sister 💕
Thank you for all the praise all around sis! Nothing wrong with a good packaged hummus, it’s saved me many a time when I’ve been out of town and the only healthful thing in the convenience store was the hummus!
TJ’s hummus is actually quite good and it was a nice quick lunch today.
This was beautiful and fun from top to bottom! I have not had hummus in a while; sounds like time to have some. The poem is lovely as are the stories and your pretty food.
Ah, thanks Suz! it’s a wonderful time of year, ticks aside!
I’m drooling, Dorothy. It looks Yumolicious! 😋💦
Thank you my dear!
Lovely poem! I stopped growing roses for a number of years since the Japanese beetles decimated them so badly in these parts. I’m trying again this year with a couple of drift roses. The OFF brand citronella candles help with that too; the way they formulated the wax allows it to melt in the hot sun. If you put a couple near your flowers, the beetles are attracted to the scent and get trapped in the liquid. Your hummus recipe looks great, I’ll have to try it with roasted veggies and crunchy chickpeas next time I make some!
I’m going to have to try the citronella! I hate those beetles, they can be ravenous!
Your platter looks gorgeous but I can’t get friendly with Chickpeas. I keep trying to like them but it’s not working. The garden looks lovely too and I especially love your Lilac…..but the thought of horrible ticks is a step too far!
The ticks are driving us crazy!
Have you ever made hummus with other types of beans? I know many people don’t like the slightly drier texture of chickpeas.
Delicious hommus or hummus, so nice with tabouli and veggies on a wrap. I made an asparagus version once. I loved it, but the family didn’t. To be fair, the one that did relish hommus, cannot eat it any longer due to IBD.
Reading about your version makes me want to make some more, even if it just for me.
You must be looking first to summer in your garden, here I have my winter crop of snow peas beginning to mature.
My spring peas will be ready soon, they are coming along well. We are approaching summer solstice st the end of the month and our long days. Twilight at 9:10 pm right now and it will very slowly darken this time of year. I love it, and so does the garden.
I long for the late twilight of the northern hemisphere. Being closer to the equator, it is non-existent here. It is still dark at 6.15 am when I drive to Qi Gung at the beach in the mornings. However, that means I get to see the sunrise every day I exercise. It is quite spectacular when it is over the water. Except today, it was raining. Probably our last rains until the summer storms hit from September onwards, so the garden needs to make the most of it. Cheers,
There really is always something special about the sunrise and sunsets over the water. When we’re at the shore, it seems there is always a brilliant show, and here on Lake Champlain we always get spectacular color.
You are right about the sunsets and sunrises over the water. Nature at its most stunning. On our peninsula, you can see both. (Sunrise in the east in the morning and over both water and distant mountains in the west late evening. So special
P.S. I just looked up Lake Champlain. It is huge! Looks like a lovely place to visit.
we call it the sixth Great Lake! But the other Great Lakes don’t appreciate that. We get a lot if tourists in the summer for the lake, and we’re close to the mountains so winter skiers as well. Helps support our economy.
The sixth Great Lake! There are at least five others. I know so little of your geography. Is that where you find Niagara Falls? Pardon my ignorance. I will have to look it up.
Niagara Falls is on the border between Ontario, Canada, and New York state, and is technically located on the Niagara River which connects lakes Erie and Ontario, two of the great lakes. We’ve been there a couple of times and it is really awesome!
It sounds like an amazing part of the world.
There’s a huge downside. The first time we went there, we ended up in the area of the notorious Love Canal!
Oh… now I am really intrigued. Why is the Love Canal bad? Unless it is a seedy place where free love is practised, perhaps? Orgies around every corner… lol….
Oh nothing so titillating, and that would have been much better. It was a notorious site of chemical contamination. A superfund site, that took years to clean up, probably decades. In the northeast US, it seemed to dominate the news endlessly.
The time we got lost just outside of Buffalo, were we’re looping through what seemed to be endless massive chemical storage tanks, many stories tall. It was really quite scary, and eye opening.
That sounds more apocalyptic than saucy! Chemical contamination- eek. I recall something about radioactive frogs in the US some decades back, but perhaps this was related to a nuclear accident. Sorry my memory is so hazy. I will have to google it. It sounds like in hindsight, it was not a wise practice to build chemical plants near waterways.
I doubt we’ll ever learn!
I don’t remember the frogs, but it was probably something to do with the cooling waters.
Re the frogs. Google tells me that was in Oakridge, Tennessee. A nuclear contamination from.a laboratory. I got mixed up!
Hummus and veggies in a wrap . . . add a mug of strong black coffee and that makes a happy breakfast for me . . . yep, that may sound funny but marries well with me 🙂 ! Love the way you have put yours together > am scrolling back up to see and copy . . .
Thanks Eha! I think a hummus wrap marries well for breakfast for me too! I love a hummus plate in the morning with a salad and cucumbers.
Yes to hummus, roasted vegetables, your sweet poem, and rugosa roses. Boo to ticks. We have those nasty biters here, too, at our home by the edge of the woods.
They are terrible here this year!
And here, too. I hope they settle down.
How does one control ticks? Do they have a natural predator?
Ticks are really hard to control. They have quite a few natural predators, but the explosion of ticks here had been from the climate change, warmer winters and there is not as much natural die off. This has been a huge problem for our moose in particular which get horrible infestations that threaten their lives.
Oh the poor moose! The ticks would weaken them significantly, I imagine.
They can kill them actually! It’s pretty alarming:
https://www.outdoorlife.com/hunting/winter-ticks-kill-moose/
Yes, different birds and animals eat ticks, but there are still so many. Unfortunately, the ticks are a recent arrival. Didn’t have them in Maine when my children were young. A vaccine for Lyme disease is in the works. It can’t come soon enough.
I’ll pull some weeds for that good looking lunch. 🙂 The flowers are gorgeous, and the ticks are a real menace. I’ve seen more this year than ever before so I’m working to try and survive without a bite. Good luck to you and your family also.
Husbands bitten last week, pulled one off my dog last night. My granddaughter and her friend had multiple on them during weeding. They are driving me crazy, way more than other years.
I enjoyed this post so much. My garden is currently under attack by Japanese beatles. I love how well the traps work, but still find myself having to knock
them into the soapy water.
Your flowers are beautiful and the hummus recipe with roasted chickpeas sounds fun.
Thanks Julia! I don’t think we’ll ever get rid of all those blasted beetles, but we can try!
What a gorgeous, perfect lunch!
Thanks! We loved it.
now that’s a pretty plate!
Well, thank you very much!
What a colorful and delicious dish!!
Thank you! Gotta add some fun.
Thanks for bringing the Mediterranean to my midday – yummy!
You are most kindly welcome!
I can’t say that I love chickpeas, but I do eat a lot of them in hummus and alone. Thank you for the recipes, Dorothy.
You are mist kindly welcome!
June was my favorite month to garden in New England. So many flowers bloomed and my tomatoes had been planted the first of June. Your hummus and roasted vegetables sound like a delicious reward for picking weeds.
Thanks Karen! It all seems to be happening at once!
I will always love hummus! And I’d be over in a heartbeat for this if I weren’t several states away. You remind me of the wild Iowa rose from my childhood. I successfully transplanted one from an Iowa ditch into my Minnesota garden. It was one of the many plantings I mourned when I moved to Georgia.
A wild Iowa rose, how lovely!!!
We try to take those memories with us, and sometimes we succeed Mollie, other times it is not meant to be.
I love hummus! I recently came upon a recipe using butter beans instead of chickpeas (from Chef Vivian Howard’s book “Deep Run Roots”). It is very good! I also want to try adding some beetroot powder to hummus next time I make it, to change the color a bit. Thanks for giving us a wonderful recipe.
It all sounds good Peg! My daughter makes a hummus with sweet potatoes and it is pretty good, even though I’m not a fan of that vegetable.