As part of my 'Eat Real Food for Summer Campaign' I'm looking at all of those prepared foods you find on your supermarket shelves and showing you just how simple and easy it is to make them yourself. One item I've really got into the habit of making at least once a week is a homemade hummus or dip.

Dips can be great for healthy eating as they can be used as a snack with some vegetable sticks or as a topping for your salad lunch or evening meal. Two things are important to remember when it comes to dips.

Firstly, rather than go for cream or cheese based dips, instead try bean based, vegetable based or yogurt based dips instead. Great examples are hummus (made from chickpeas), guacamole (made from avocado) and Tzatiki (made from yogurt and cucumber).

The second thing to remember is that when you buy them premade in the supermarket, always check what oils have been added. Make sure they use extra virgin olive oil as much as possible, rather than vegetable oils and sunflower oils which have been processed heavily and are linked to a number of health issues.

Of course the best way around this is to make them yourself at home. It usually involves nothing more than some garlic, olive oil and lemon juice but you can add your own spices to flavour even more. As the summer is such a great time for greens, I have made the recipe below out of broad beans. You could easily use peas or beans instead.

Broad bean dip
300g Broad Beans
Juice of 1 lemon
1 clove of garlic - crushed
Half a medium red chilli – deseeded and finely chopped
10 mint leaves – finely chopped
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and freshly cracked pepper

Pod beans if you have bought them whole or you can buy broad beans already podded. Boil a little water, add broad beans and cook for 2 mins. Drain and wash under cold straight away.

Place the lemon, garlic, chilli, cooled broad beans and mint leaves into a food processor (or use a hand blender) and blitz. Slowly add the olive oil until is smooth. Season with a little salt and pepper.

Serve on salad of fresh rocket leaves with some wholemeal toast.

For more tasty dips and snacks, checkout my recipes on www.foodforliving.ie

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