Hungry Pumpkin finger food Part 2

You didn’t know that pumpkins have fingers (and neither did we…) but here we are, back again with more finger foods to keep your holiday season flowing smoothly! Few days ago we published the first part of our finger foods menu for your holiday parties, and now we are keeping the energy moving! Not only are these foods great for this busy time of year when there is so much entertaining to be done, but they are also wonderful throughout the year!

In addition to snacks, we at Hungry Pumpkin think that dips are an important part of any good festive meal. Besides being simple and delicious, they will also add a splash of colour to your table to liven things up!

These can also be eaten in so many ways (on crackers, in sandwiches, with fresh or cooked vegetables) and we decided to eat ours with crunchy fresh carrots, peppers, and delicious sweet potato oven fries.

Baba ghanoush

Baba ghanoush is a Middle Eastern appetizer that is often served with pita bread or simply presented as a side dish. Baba ghanoush requires eggplant, which is first put in the oven at a high temperature (about 220 degrees) to give a crispy outer crust with a soft, juicy inside. In our case, we cut the larger eggplant in half to shorten the baking time. When the eggplant is ready, we added a spoon ful of tahini (sesame paste), a clove of garlic, olive oil, a little salt, and a splash of lemon juice. We removed the peel from the eggplant and blended it all together with our trusty stick mixer.

Classic hummus

The holidays can be a tough time. We all have that old, grumpy family member who says inappropriate things during family gatherings. Though you may not be able to agree with the things they say, we can certainly all agree on one thing around the party table: hummus is amazing. Hummus also originates in the Middle East, but today it is also commonly found in stores throughout Europe and North America. Its preparation is very similar to that of baba ghanoush, except that instead of roasted eggplant we use boiled chickpeas, which are also added to a tablespoon of tahini, garlic cloves, olive oil, a little salt, and some lemon juice. We blended it all up and garnished it with some parsley just to look extra fancy!

Pink bean hummus

Since we at Hungry Pumpkin are big fans of beet and we like to see some colour, we included beet in this dip. The process of preparing the dip is very similar to that of hummus and baba ghanoush, except that this time we used boiled white beans and boiled beets along with a tablespoon of tahini and a little olive oil. In our case, we used red beet in stock so that we could use just a small amount without getting an overpowering flavour. However, we suggest using of freshly cooked beets if case you are using a larger amount. If you are not a fan of red beet but want that beautiful pink, you can also add a smaller amount, which will primarily contribute the colour but not the taste. The dip itself is beautifully pink in color and perfectly brightens up an already interesting table.

Price and nutritional value

With these tasty and veggies, we consumed about 12% of our daily caloric requirements. Combined with our snacks from last week, this could be a whole meal! We did quite well for protein too, mainly from the beans and chickpeas, though the combination of eggplant and sweet potato helped us out too. We also got lots of fibre, a huge 46% of our daily needs! Despite the small size of this snack, we managed to get a reasonable amount of most nutrients, with just calcium and selenium being a bit lower than we would like. Vitamins D and B12 were also lacking of course, as always in vegan foods that are not fortified.

If you have any questions about today’s meal, its nutritional value, or you want to suggest ideas for future lunches, then send us an email at hungry.pumpkin.blog@gmail.com and we will get back to you about it with pleasure!

-The Hungry Pumpkin Team