Smoked Paprika and Cumin

As I mentioned yesterday, this week is rather hell-ish for me (and my fellow law students with a million things due this week), so my cook time has been limited.  Luckily, I snuck away from school yesterday for an hour and a half and whipped up some hummus.  Yum.  The best part about hummus is that I can add a different spice to the individual serving and get a new variation that way (and a way to be lazy about my theme...).

When my parents were here a few weeks ago, my mom and I came across this smoked Spanish paprika...and it has changed my life.  Seriously.  I put this stuff in just about everything now.  It is so good in bean dishes, on popcorn, in soup, and, as I did yesterday, in hummus.

Here is a picture of my beautiful jar of smoked paprika, with the poor cumin lurking in the background, being sad it isn't the star anymore:

And nothing makes me happier when I have hummus, than to also have some nice, fresh veggies.  So I chopped up a red pepper and a cucumber.  Yum.  I had a variation on this for dinner as well...I brought some Sticks & Twigs pretzel snacks to have with my hummus in the evening, and that was amazing as well.  Now look at how pretty my lunch was:

I am almost sad that I have to use other spices all month...I would probably use this one every other day if I hadn't committed to exploring my spice rack.  I can't promise, though, that I won't highlight this glorious spice again.  

I need to track down the rest of my pictures of dishes that I've put this in, but until that happens, here is Benjamin, working hard, again: