Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

Hello friends! I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend – and for those of you had an extra day off for MLK day, I hope that made the weekend better :)

Now first things first, here is the winner for last weeks giveaway:

Congratulations to Brittany from Life of a Bama Girl! Please email me with your address sometime in the next 48 hours so that I can send the egg beater to you!

I loved hearing about the movies that everyone is excited to see – The Hunger Games was quite the popular choice :) Glad to see that I’m not the only one pumped to see it!

Now back to weekend happenings – mine was full of race related awesomeness! After a bit of talk on twitter, I signed up to run the P.F. Chang’s Rock N’ Roll Arizona Half Marathon Relay with Carolyn! Since my Tinker Bell half is only 2 weeks away, I didn’t want to run the full, but I thought a half of a half would be just as great. Carolyn and I spent some time deciding on a team name and ended up deciding on Team Lava: Not So Fast, But Pretty Damn Hot” for our name. We have definitely received a few laughs at the name :)

Saturday was the race expo which was tons of fun (but really packed!). Ari and her friend Kara also signed up for the race, but to run their first half marathons(!!) so we tagged along with them to the expo. We did our ever-exciting “fake run” pose for a picture! Too bad that looks nothing like how I run haha

I was so excited after packing up our race bibs and bags when I saw that our relay baton was a drumstick – how fitting for a rock and roll relay :)

We browsed around the expo for a few hours checking out all the goods. I ended up buying some shot blocks since they had a few flavors I hadn't seen before (margarita! and fruit punch). There was also a table for RunDisney at the expo and they had the medal display up with the Tinker Bell half marathon medal…I was ecstatic to get to see it again before my race (talk about motivation!)

After the expo Carolyn and I went to have some Team Lava shirts made for the race on Sunday then headed over to Ari’s house for a carbolicious pre race dinner.

I’m not one to sit around while others are cooking for me so I didn’t wait long before taking over jumping in to help in the kitchen! I think I may have frightened Ari with my aggressive potato pureeing skills haha.

We had a bit of technical difficulties with the gnocchi that we tried to make (in all honesty I think the recipe was a little whack), but (after some resistance from me) Ari made the would-have-been gnocchi into a lovely mash. Overall the meal was wonderful and was nice way to prepare for our early morning ahead of us!

On Sunday we joined Ari and her family for a post-race brunch Chompies to celebrate Ari’s first half marathon (you can read her amazing recap here!) And then did a little more celebrating that evening with a dinner at the Yard House with some others runners that also did the race. It felt a little silly at times since I only did 1/2 of the half marathon, but was still fun none the less :)

I’ll be posting my actual race recap tomorrow for those of you who are interested :)

With the Super Bowl coming up around the corner I wanted to share another one of my favorite dips. I think that roasted red pepper hummus is actually my favorite variety of hummus, it never lets me down. There is something about the peppers that add a little oomph to the hummus. Plus this recipe is incredibly easy! I love being able to throw the ingredients into the food processor, pulse it all together and voilà! You have a crowd pleasing appetizer in no time. I like to serve it with veggies and pita/pita chips, but any kind of dipper of your choice would work!

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

Ingredients:

1 (15 ounce) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 clove garlic, minced

3 tablespoons lemon juice

¼ cup tahini

¼ cup jarred roasted red peppers

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

¼ cup water

Pinch of cumin

Pinch of cayenne

Salt and pepper

Fresh parsley or cilantro to garnish

 

Directions:

Process all of the ingredients in a food processor until smooth, about 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a serving bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and chill until the flavors meld, at least an hour.

 

If desired, garnish with a drizzle of olive oil and fresh parsley. Serve with assorted veggies and pita chips.

 

Hummus can be refrigerated for up to 3 days