Quick & Easy Carrot Homous (gluten-free / dairy-free / soy-free)

I think every parent struggles with finding healthy, nutritious snacks that their children will eat.  When you start to factor in dietary restrictions, what was a struggle truly becomes a challenge.  I've been gluten-free for over three years now, so in truth its simply a way of life for me.  Dairy-free was a bit of an adjustment in my cooking; though I don't drink milk I do eat cheese and yogurt.  Now that soy has also been stripped from the boys diet, I sometimes feel like finding quick and easy snacks for the boy is an impossible undertaking.

I'm being dramatic.  It is hard, but it is more than possible to feed the boy.  I'd been trying to feed the boy homous for quite some time when I discovered the Fat Free Vegan's Recipe for Shiny Happy Hummus.  Although the boy isn't a huge fan of carrots, I thought it was worth a try.  I figured perhaps the sweetness of carrots could counteract the strong taste of traditional homous.  I didn't use the spices or the ground ginger, just a tiny bit of garlic, lemon juice and tahini in addition to the chickpeas and cooked carrots.  Shiny Happy Hummus was a hit; the boy gobbled it up and I loved that he was getting protein, fibre and veggies.

Now that I'm back to work however, finding time to make gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free lunches is hard enough, I figured there must be a quicker way to make carrot homous without cooking carrots and dirtying up the food processor.

And there is.  Now I use plain store bought homous and babyfood to make a delicious snack the boy happily eats is as an afternoon snack ater his nap.  Plus it satisfies his current need for all things 'dip'.  Ironically I never fed the boy jarred babyfood before but the work-life balance means sacrifices all round. 

Personally I like to use organic babyfood for this reicipe (and I always make sure the ingredients are just carrots and water) and I try to buy the 'plainest' homous I an find at the grocery store.  It sounds a bit odd, but there are often multiple brands of homous available and some of them have far more 'extra ingredients' than others.  My boy LOVES to eat his homous with gluten-free Sundried Tomato and Oregano Cracklebred - if you haven't tried them, these crackers ROCK!

I have tried making this with pea babyfood as well as a sweetpotato/carrot combo of babyfood but none were as successful as plain old carrot.  I'd love to hear if you have any successful veggie/homous combinations I should try out.

Quick and Easy Carrot Homous

Ingredients:

Store-bought, plain homous
1 jar (organic) carrot babyfood
crackers or cooked veggies to 'dip'

Instructions:

• In a small container mix 1 tsp* of homous with approximatley 1/3 a jar of babyfood.
• Mix well and serve as a 'dip' with crackers or soft cooked veggies.

*If your child has never tasted homous before, you may want to start with a greater ratio of carrot to homous and then increase the proportion of homous as your little one becomes accustomed to the taste and texture of the chickpeas.