Sunflower Chickpea Spread

With beginning to make bread from scratch, I’ve been going through bread a lot quicker than usual, and bean spreads are a great way to make a nutritious meal of it and also let the flavour of the bread shine (well, as long as the flavour of the spread is mild enough!). More bean spreads can be expected in the future, that is for sure. This one is a variation on hummus, and makes a nice summery spread. In this picture I’ve made it the base of a delicious veggie-full open-faced sandwich, on my homemade bread along with lettuce from my garden, local organic cucumber, home-grown bean sprouts, and some chives, also from my garden. This spread also makes a very addictive tortilla chip dip!


Sunflower Chickpea Spread

½ cup raw sunflower seeds
½ cup water (or more)
1 tablespoon olive oil (or more)
1 ½ cups cooked chickpeas (or 1 can)
5 oil-packed sundried tomatoes, sliced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
juice of 1 lemon
1 handful fresh sage (or other fresh herb – rosemary or thyme would probably work, too)
1 handful fresh parsley
3/4 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

Toast the sunflower seeds until fragrant. Grind them in a food processor until as fine as possible. Then add the water, oil and chickpeas, and blend, adding more water or oil (if needed) to get a good spread-able consistency. Then add all the other ingredients and blend until very smooth. Done!