Yogurt 3 -or- Oh man, is hummus good

I have to admit an attraction to... cute things. Novel. Well-designed. However you say it, I'll be the one ooo-ing and aah-ing over things like egg cooker/timers masquerading as flowers, bamboo-handled technicolor silicone ladles, and bento-box tulip wiener cutters.
Do I eat... um.. wieners? No. Is that the point? Also no. These kinds of unnecessarily aesthetically pleasing objects are simply very appealing to me (as, I suppose, is the idea).
For this reason I was especially excited at the prospect of eating this lovely little becher of Landliebe plain yogurt. How cute! How quaint! How other-diminuitive-adjective! My expectations were high. I was actually saving it for last (still well within the sell-by date) because of the excitement factor, which shows great discipline on my part.

However.
The yogurt inside is, after all, quite important. A dealbreaker.
And this one just didn't cut it.
There was no tang, no smooth-down-the-throat, no yogurt-ness. It was vaguely milky, but not in a rich way, despite its whole-milk history. Before and after stirring, this is still what faced me:

If someone ever dropped a bunch of these in my lap, I would use them for baking-- like in quick breads, pancakes, or as egg replacer. Or it might, might be acceptable under a lot of granola and dried fruit and honey. Sigh. It was really worth a try, though. And now we're using the becher as a dandelion vase, so it wasn't a complete loss.

In other news, I made hummus, and it was brilliant.
Through sheer luck I recently came upon a (huge) bag of dried chickpeas for €2.99 or some other scandalously low price, and then proceeded to forget I had purchased them. It was probably some kind of subconscious repression, I'm not sure. At any rate, I decided taking baby steps toward an actual dish would be the best course of action.

So one evening I left a cup of the dry wrinkled beans to soak in three cups water.
The next day I boiled them with some more water (this is getting exciting, I know) and a cut-up onion and some peppercorns. Then they waited. Patiently.
Finally, later that night I decided some protein was in order. I whipped (whup?) out the tahini! Lemon! Olive oil! Garlic! Cumin, paprika, sea salt! I was on a roll.
The lack of things like blenders, food processors, and pastry cutters in my apartment encouraged the use of a fork for mashing. There was no real recipe. Go by taste-- I ended up using far more salt than I expected to, mainly because canned beans usually have it added by the scoop. Two whole scoops in every can!

The final product got to wait, once again, in the refrigerator. Hummus and baba ghannouj and such really appreciate having some time to let the flavors get to know each other, if you will.

Some wheat flour, a drop of oil, salt, and water later I had chapati dough and a wine bottle with which to roll it as thinly as possible. These hand-sized rounds (or shapes, at least) rested for a couple of minutes before I seared them in a hot, hot skillet. Press down lightly with a spatula so the whole surface has contact with the pan, and when it starts browning a bit flip it (once!) and watch it puff. If everything comes together, they are even more fun to watch cooking than pappadam. The one in the picture, you might notice, was no such chapati. It still had a nice nutty wheat flavor.

Now tell me that isn't gorgeous. And here's a money shot, in natural light.

Just for kicks, I tried to think of reasons why hummus is not a perfect food. And I couldn't. It has fiber, legume protein, seed protein, good fats, good spices. Garlic for whatever reason people are crazy about it now. Wheat to make a complete protein. Goes well with practically any vegetable or savory bread product, keeps well, has a thousand variations, and cost me practically nothing.
I'm glad I finally made the commitment.