Making hummus

Hummus is a Middle Eastern appetizer that our family loves.  It is pretty simple to make.  We made some a few days ago and I thought I'd share the process.  Here is the recipe:

Hummus

4 cloves garlic (minced or mashed)
32 ounces garbanzo beans (chickpeas) drained and rinsed
2/3 cups of tahini (roasted, not raw) sesame seed paste
1/3 cup lemon juice (a co-worker brought me some lemons from her tree and I juiced it)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
pine nuts toasted & chopped parsley (garnish)

Combine all in a food processor until smooth.
Garnish, serve with crackers, pita chips, raw veggies or pita bread

Here is how we do it:  First Tricia soaks the garbanzo beans overnight and then drains off the liquid.  They swell up nice and plump.



Soaked garbanzos

Then we take four cloves of garlic, peel them, and mince them up. 

Mmmm.  I love garlic.

Juice some lemons, pouring it through a sieve so you don't get lemon seeds in your hummus.


Lemon Juicing

Pour your garbanzo beans into the food processor. 

Pouring in the beans

Now add some garlic and Kosher salt.


Garlic and Salt going in

Add a half a cup of organic water.  (Just a joke) 

1/2 cup water

And then a quarter cup of olive oil.


Olive Oil

And finally some sesame tahini.  I had no idea what this was until we started making hummus.  Tahini is roasted sesame seeds that have been crushed into an oily paste.



Adding Tahini

 Now that you have all the ingredients in the food processor, simply turn it on and process until it is smooth.  This is so easy to prepare.


Processing the hummus

We spoon it into a serving bowl and I chopped up some fresh Cosmic Purple carrots from the garden to dip into the hummus.  We also chopped up some celery to eat it with as well as some pita chips that we had on hand and garnished it with some fresh parsley from the garden.  This stuff is rich and delicious.



Hummus!