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Cucumber slices with hummus and red bell pepper slices

These make for some great vegan hors d'oeuvres for the holidays.

The cucumbers should be not too thick and not too thin, about ¼ inch thick (they need to support the weight of the topping).

There are lots of hummus recipes on line.  I just boiled the chickpeas, added some herbs (mint), green onion, tomato sauce, lime juice, cherry tomatoes, salt, and water.  I slowly added the water little by little as I blended it to get the right consistency.  I used a hand-held stick type blender. Then I covered the hummus which was in a bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator to chill.

You might be able to find red peppers in a jar, but I just peeled a large bell pepper with a Kuhn-Rikon peeler and then sliced the pepper into pieces (roughly 1 inch x ½ inch).  I put the pieces into a bowl and added a good amount of salt to draw out the water from the pepper, and mixed the peppers with my hands to distribute the salt evenly onto the pepper slices.  I put the bowl into the refrigerator and mixed the peppers again with my hands about every 10-15 minutes.  After about 30 minutes or so, I rinsed and strained the pepper slices in trying to get rid of the excess salt, and put the pepper slices back into the refrigerator until ready.

When ready to serve, assemble your cucumber slices on a plate, use a spoon to place a dollop of hummus on each cucumber slice, and top with one or two bell pepper slices.

I used a salt shaker to sprinkle a little more salt over the assembled product before serving to guests.