Large quantities of chickpeas and garlic (two of my absolute favorite things!) are unfortunately prohibited on the Low FODMAP diet. For me, this meant going through some pretty severe hummus withdrawal.
Incredibly, I created a pretty darn good hummus substitute completely by accident, one lazy evening when I wanted pizza but had absolutely nothing in the way of typical sauce fixings. There were no tomatoes, no pesto-making herbs, and no olives for a tapenade. To make matters worse, the crust I had thrown together definitely did not lend itself to a white-pizza set-up, especially since I didn’t have any cheese. As I often do in these situations, I pulled out a blender and started throwing some random stuff inside, in the hopes I could come up with something spreadable and yummy. Lentils went in, then chestnuts, then some herbes de provence, olive oil, and spices. When I tasted the concoction, I was elated. It was a complete failure in terms of being a pizza sauce, but it tasted remarkably similar to hummus!
After dancing around the kitchen for a good half hour rejoicing over having hummus back in my life again, I had one of the worst pizzas of my life for dinner (the absence of both cheese and sauce proved devastating) and promptly abandoned it in favor of some chips and chestnut “hummus.” Back to dancing – I could eat this stuff all day!
