This blog is supposed to be all about the best thing(s) I’ve eaten in the last week. However, this can be interpreted in many ways – for example, what constitutes “best”. Is it the most flavoursome, or the most challenging? Or maybe it’s the most exciting, or what about the most unexpected?

For example, we went to visit my parents on Sunday where my Mum served a really lovely fragrant chicken in cider dish. That’d be worth a mention!

Or what about her orange drizzle cake made with ground almonds? That’s definitely worth a mention.

However, for the first entry in this blog post, I am going to talk about hummus, as it is the most unlikely thing for me to have made.

Since forever, my hubby has been saying to me “you should make your own hummus, you know” (much in the same way as he’s now saying “you should make your own gnocchi”). So while the gnocchi still waits, I overcame my reluctance and bought some Tahini paste, dried chickpeas – and waited for the muse to strike.

Well, the muse took her time – as 6 months down the line, I’ve just made my first batch of hummus. I found that the first problem was remembering to put the chickpeas on to soak the night before. Yes, I know you can use tinned chickpeas, but if reports were to be believed, the best hummus comes from dried, soaked and boiled chickpeas rather than tinned. I am also controlled by the “I’ve got to do it RIGHT” muse, by the way.

So, having managed to remember to soak the chickpeas, I was then committed to doing something with them the next day. The cooking of the chickpeas was easy enough – into a pan with a teensy amount of salt and a whole heap of water, boil for an hour. Sorted. Tasting them thereafter, I realise now why hummus purists prefer the dried version. The flavour is far superior. So anyway, I procrastinated as long as was possible over the next stage, then got on with it.

Chuck the chickpeas into a food processor, add olive oil, Tahini (I suggest you start with just a little and work your way upwards – basically because you can’t take it out once it’s gone in and it is a very strong flavour), a good quantity of lemon juice, a squashed garlic clove and some salt & pepper. Blitz until the mixture runs smoothly, adding olive oil as you go, to get the right texture.

I found it was a trial and error thing with the quantities of olive oil, lemon juice and salt. Very much a personal taste issue.

However, it really wasn’t as big a deal as I was thinking it might be. It was really quite easy – and the hummus is a very forgiving substance, which you can blitz and taste, blitz and taste, without it getting all huffy and going wrong like egg whites will, in similar circumstances.

Of course, I got the quantities wrong and made an industrial sized quantity – so I’ll be scaling that down for future hummus makes – but it was really very nice indeed. I ate it with a drizzle of olive oil and some cayenne pepper sprinkled on, with mini carrots and some little salty biscuits and it made a very yummy mid-film snack.

So, getting back to the concept of what makes something the “best”, I think the picnic we had the other day when we visited the New Forest was by far and away the “best” meal we had this week – for its spontaneity, if nothing else.

After a lifetime of owning horses, I moved down to Dorset at a time when I was horse-less. However, the proximity of the New Forest served to cheer me, as I knew any time I needed a horse-fix, they’d be there. So, we’ve lived here in Dorset for getting on for four years. Have we been there? Twice – and then one of those visits was by accident.

So I’d been wittering and whining about going during May/June, so that we could see (for which, read that I could see) all this year’s foals. It didn’t look like it was going to happen, when all of a sudden we found ourselves planning the trip for the next day. The sun was forecast, we hadn’t planned to picnic but hey – we’d find something to eat from the fridge!

So off we went, stopping at Bolderwood picnic site to shiver in the cool wind and bask in the hot sun (alternately) whilst eating scotch eggs, ham sandwiches, radishes, tomatoes, cucumber (not Spanish), peaches, apples and cherries. Why is it that food tastes better when it’s eaten in the fresh air? That must be why those continental types do it so often.

Oh and yes, I saw my baby foals. So, so adorable!