Hummus-Tomato Pasta #Recipe by Maya Corrigan

My sleuth's Granddad loves recipes with few ingredients that cook in a single pot, like this pasta dish that combines tomatoes, basil, olives, hummus, and fresh lemon. It takes barely 20 minutes from pantry to table. 

I adapted this recipe from one published in the Washington Post (8/16/23). It was based on a recipe in Toni Okamoto's Plant-Based on a Budget: Quick and Easy.

Serves 2 - 3 (easily doubled or tripled for a group) 

Ingredients

8 ounces of spaghetti or other pasta

1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil

1/2 cup hummus, plain or any flavor

1/2 cup chopped fresh tomatoes

1/3 cup sliced Kalamata olives, plus some for garnish if desired

2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil, plus some for garnish if desired

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice or more to taste

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Cook the pasta according to the directions. While it’s cooking, measure the other ingredients and chop them as needed. 

When the pasta is done, reserve 2/3 cup of the cooking water before draining the rest.

Return the cooked pasta and 1/3 cup of the reserved water to the same pot. Stir in the sun-dried tomatoes, hummus, fresh tomatoes, olives, basil, lemon juice and pepper. Toss to combine.  Add additional cooking water until the sauce is the consistency you like. Taste the mixture and add salt, pepper, and additional lemon juice to taste.

If desired, garnish with more tomatoes, olives, and basil. Serve warm.

Do you have a favorite easy pasta dish?

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Maya Corrigan writes the Five-Ingredient Mysteries featuring café manger Val and her live-wire grandfather solving murders in a Chesapeake Bay town. Maya lives in a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Before writing crime fiction, she taught American literature, writing, and detective fiction at Northern Virginia Community College and Georgetown University. When not reading and writing, she enjoys theater, travel, trivia, cooking, and crosswords.

Visit a mystery fan fest in the latest Five-Ingredient Mystery

Val and Granddad attend a mystery fan fest that features a bake-off between contestants playing the roles of cooks to fictional sleuths. As Nero Wolfe’s gourmet chef, Granddad competes against Sherlock Holmes's landlady Mrs. Hudson, played by Cynthia Sweet. Granddad blames her for ripping off the five-ingredient theme of his Codger Cook newspaper column to use in her own recipe column and cookbook. When she’s found dead in her hotel room with a whistling teakettle next to her, he and Val sort through the festival-goers to find the one with the biggest beef against Ms. Not-So-Sweet.

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