Peanut "hummus"

I decided to create this recipe for a friend who has some food allergies. Beyond the allergies, he recently discovered that he is sensitive to a lot of other ordinary everyday foods, and he's giving them up for six months and maybe forever. One of the items on his list is chickpeas, so I started doing research on other ways to make a hummus-like dip. I found several recipes for boiled peanut hummus, but we can't get boiled peanuts here, or green peanuts to boil ourselves. So, I set about making a Thai-spice inspired "hummus" and gosh darn it, it's good. Here it is.

Peanut "hummus"

1-1/2 cups of roasted peanuts

several cloves of roasted garlic (adjust the sweetening if you use fresh)

a bunch of green onions (2-3 inches of the white and light green, chopped)

2 T maple syrup (honey or another sweetener would be fine)

juice of 1 lime

2 T sriracha hot sauce (use more or less to taste)

1 t. fish sauce

two or three twists of black pepper

Put 1 cup of the peanuts and the other ingredients into a food processor. Blend until the well mixed, but not as smooth as peanut butter. This might take a few minutes. Taste the paste and adjust the seasoning to suit your palate. Make it a bit more intense than you'd like as the last 1/2 cup of peanuts will be added next. Add the last 1/2 cup of peanuts and process just till the new peanuts are broken. I like having chunks of peanut in the sauce to make the texture more interesting, but if you want it consistently smooth, just put all the peanuts in at the beginning. Garnish with some minced green onion if you'd like. You could also use cilantro or perhaps even some fresh basil for brightness instead of green onion. Serve with sliced veggies, corn chips, or whatever suits you!