Green Hummus & Roasted Carrots

For the month of July and August, we’ve been shining a light on Canada’s Food Waste issue which includes letting you know that $31 billion worth of food is wasted in Canada every year, that is about 40% of food produced annually in Canada. In response to this, an entire root-to-stem movement has formed. The goal is to show people how to use the entire vegetable when they’re cooking so they eliminate food waste and be part of the solution and not the problem.

With inspiration from Vitamix, we’ve been trying our best to get the most of our ingredients. As result, we’ve put together a green hummus and roasted carrot recipe that we’re really proud of.

Our two key ingredients are swiss chards and carrots. Both of which have parts that typically get discarded – the stalk of the chards and the tops of the carrots. What we’ve put together is a two-part recipe of green hummus and roasted carrots dish that’s easy to make and works as a great appetizer. The highlight of this recipe is definitely in the hummus because it uses the entire chard, as well as the carrot tops.

The roasted carrots are still great too!

To make the hummus we used Vitamix’s Explorian blender. In order to get the consistency right, we patiently started the machine at the Variable 1 speed and slowly worked our way to the fastest settings. After leaving it for one minute at top speed, we saw that the Explorian was able to deliver the consistency that we wanted for our Hummus.

Take a look at the recipe below:

Place all of the ingredients for the green hummus inside the 48-ounce container. Make sure the Explorian blender is set to the Variable 1 setting. Slow turn the dial to the highest setting, leaving it there for one minute. Afterwards, turn back the dial to 1 and shut off the machine. Remove the lid and taste!

Green Hummus

1 can of chickpeas (drained)
2 or 3 chard stalks from 1 pound whole chard, trimmed and chopped
2 whole cloves of garlic (Peeled)
1 tablespoon of olive oil, plus more for drizzling after
¼ cup (60 ml) of fresh lemon juice
¼ cup (60 ml) of water
½ teaspoon kosher salt

Optional

¼ cup of Tahini
½ cup of fresh parsley, roughly chopped, loosely packed

For the oven roasted carrots:

Preheat oven to 425 celsius and set to Roast setting if possible. Clean and cut the carrots lengthwise. On an aluminum-lined baking sheet, toss carrots and garlic cloves with 1 tablespoon olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic salt. Arrange in a single layer and roast until carrots are tender and garlic is golden, 10-12 minutes.

Words & Photography: Jon Carlo Tapia