Like many recent posts on Hilary Makes, this pumpkin hummus was inspired by friend and CBC web editor Wendy Bird.

Last week she brought in the newsroom snack of all newsroom snacks, a food so delicious it made me want to reconsider my life goals and trade all future ambitions for a vat of hummus. Not even a little bit exaggerating. While Wendy’s pumpkin hummus is getting all the attention in this post, I must also mention the accompanying chocolate pumpkin bundt cake. So moist and perfect, it made up for the fact that I had forgotten my lunch. In addition to feeding us, the treats were brought so Wendy could chat with Jason, the host of our afternoon show, about all the great things you can do with those gosh darn leftover pumpkins.

But back to the hummus. After getting up from my desk at least two dozen times to stuff hummus-dipped crackers in my mouth, I finally swore I would make my own dip later in the week. And so I did, just in time for the pumpkin carving party we had on Sunday.

I was even able to convince the ever-thrifty Jen to sacrifice one half of our $1 miniature pie pumpkins so I could make it into a tiny gourd bowl. I used Ian’s badass Rambo-as-a-child knife to concavely carve the pumpkin into something that resembled a serving dish, successfully doing so while preserving all 10 of my fingertips.

I had a photo shoot on our wooden front entrance way. At one point I was so distracted by the positioning of my pretty shoes that I lightly kicked the unstable pumpkin bowl, almost giving way to a driveway full of hummus and a face full of tears.

We ate the hummus (which, after many taste tests, Jen and I concluded was just garlicky enough) with a delicious homemade baguette.

And carved pumpkins and ate more Halloween candy before actual Halloween. Oh October, you gem.

Recipe: Pumpkin hummus
– 1 cup pure pumpkin purée
– 1 1/4 cup chick peas, drained and rinsed
– 1/3 cup olive oil
– 3 garlic cloves, minced
– 1/2 tsp cayenne
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 1/4 tsp ground pepper

Combine all ingredients in a food processor or pulsing blender until smooth.

Serve in a pumpkin bowl (or not).

Makes about 2 cups.