This beetroot hummus, I confess, looks a bit freaky-ish, but oh man it’s good. It’s a great alternative to traditional hummus, and it’s a bit lighter. These crackers on the other hand were a new experiment, and came out so good. We had guests over for dinner last night, served these two together for appetizers and everyone just loved it.
I like to make hummus the day before I’m going to eat it, the flavors just blend in together more and I think it just tastes even better. And also I usually make it with chickpeas cooked by scratch, but using good quality canned ones is perfectly fine as well.

•Ingredients for the beetroot hummus•
→ 600 gr drained cooked chickpeas, rinsed
→ 1 medium beet, with skin
→ 3 tbls tahini
→ juice of 1/2 lemon
→ 2 tbls extra virgin olive oil(+1 for serving)
→ 1 small clove garlic
→ 1 1/2 tsp cumin powder
→ 1 tsp salt

Wash the beet, keep the skin on, wrap it in foil and cook in the oven on 220° (430 fahrenheit) for roughly 1 hour, or until a knife can easily go through. Use a paper towel to remove the beet’s skin, while it’s still hot, and chop into cubes. Rinse the chickpeas and put into a food mixer, add all the other ingredients, and start blending. You will have to add at least 1/2 cup of water to help smooth it out, continue adding if needed. Once the hummus is nice and smooth, place in a container and refrigerate for at least 5-6 hours before serving, or, like I do, refrigerate overnight.
Take it out of the fridge at least 30 min before serving, mix and adjust salt, serve into a bowl and drizzle 1 tbls of extra virgin olive oil.

•Ingredients for flaxseed crackers•
→ 230 g flax seeds (8.1 ounces)
→ 460 ml water
→ 5 sun dried tomatoes
→ 10 or so basil leaves
→ 60 gr oat flour (or rice, wheat flour)
→ 1 tsp salt
→ 1 tbls extra virgin olive oil

In a big bowl place the flax seeds and pour double the amount of water (460 ml), and let sit for 5-6 hours, you will see that the water will almost disappear and the flax seeds will create a gelatin texture around them.
Soak the dried tomatoes for 1-2 hours, then rinse well and pat dry (this will take the excess salt away).
When the flax and tomatoes are ready, chop the basil and tomatoes finely, or alternatively use a small food blender. Mix all the ingredients together in the flax seed bowl.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spread the mixture, try to spread it as thin as possible without making any holes (I was getting inpatient with my spatula so did it with my hands and it was much easier 🙂 ), and bake in the oven on 150° (300 fahrenheit) for 1 hour. I had to do two batches. Take it out of the oven, wait 2 minutes and then break it carefully into big pieces and you can then store the crackers into airtight containers.