Project Weeknight: White Beans and...

This isn't a true Project Weeknight entry since I wasn't feeding my son, but it's what you're getting this week so shut up and sit down already.

:)

I needed something to put on our BAS last night. I often like to use something like hummus (say, maybe... hummus?) because it kind of takes the place of salad dressing. And it tastes good. And it's cheap. And it's easy. 'Nough said.

But I didn't want to make hummus last night. I'd recently seen some recipes for what I call white bean dips; basically a paste of cannellini beans with lemon and maybe garlic and herbage. Kind of like hummus, no?

I settled on this recipe from Michael at Herbivoracious. Simple list of ingredients, all of which I had on hand. And it kind of sounded hummus-like. Score!

It didn't go quite as I'd hoped. The taste just wasn't there, you know? To compensate, I oversalted, so I had to add another can of beans. And more of everything else. Stealing a riff from another recipe, I finally added some garlic powder.

I gave up and called it done and we went ahead and ate it. It was OK. It occurred to me that what it needed was to sit a spell for the flavors to 'marry'. I think it's one of those dishes that's better the second day. I will be testing that theory soon, as I'm having it for lunch today.

Also, I lightly mashed the beans as directed and the texture just didn't do it for me, although I can see where the semi-chunky style would work on crostini. Next time I'll puree the crap out of it. Like hummus.

My other candidate was this recipe from Mark Bittman. I may give that a go next time.