Not Your Ordinary Hummus

This is for all my friends who don’t believe that hummus is the easiest Mediterranean food ever invented. I use either a mini-processor, or (more often) an immersion blender. You can use a regular blender. OR – if you want to get out some aggression, just use a fork or potato masher to mash it all up.

The basic process is as follows:  First, I walk around the house wondering what I should have for dinner. I remember that I have absolutely nothing to wear to work tomorrow, so I start washing clothes, then let the dog out, feed the fish, play with the bird, and basically do lots of random things, but nothing towards fixing something to eat, until I’m completely famished and know that I really need to make a decision.

These initial steps are not terribly important in the actual making of hummus but tend to lead to it – because it’s quick and easy and I can make it all in one bowl, with minimal cleanup (using the immersion blender), and doesn’t involve any actual cooking. Also because to get the spices right, I get to eat some as I make it (to taste it), which is decidedly a plus when you’re hungry.

Basic Recipe:

Dump the following into your blender or a good sized bowl-
1 can of garbanzo beans, drain but reserve the liquid
2 T. tahini
3 cloves of garlic, to taste (minced, if you don’t use a blender)
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt/pepper to taste. I use lemon pepper. Que fancy.

Some people add in some olive oil, but for me, the tahini adds about as much fat as I really care to have, because I eat this fairly often.

Then, just… puree the whole thing until it’s as smooth as you want, adding the reserved liquid as needed to get a consistency you like. Add spices to taste. A lot of store bought hummus has cumin, for one thing. I like to use “Spike” Vegit seasoning, and some nutritional yeast, but you can put in whatever you want. It’s yours to make of it what you like. Carpe garbanzo!

Some variations you might enjoy:
Add in jalapeno peppers to taste, and use cashew butter in place of tahini, lime in place of lemon, and fresh cilantro to taste. Thanks to a lady known only as ahimsa, for this one! If you want something less spicy, you can use roasted mild chilis instead of the jalapeno.

You can also use… sun-dried tomatoes with Italian spices; green peppers or fresh spinach … whatever you want. one of these days I might make a hummus with curry spices.

You can also use other types of beans – cannellini is one that I have tried with good results. The purists might say it’s not really hummus, but if you want to call it hummus, I won’t tell.

here is a picture of a typical weekend hummus lunch or dinner (yes I ate all of it too – I admit that the veggie sticks are just a vehicle to get the hummus to my mouth, but whatever works, right?). This is the spicy jalapeno/cilantro version. Plain hummus isn’t usually green unless you’ve added something green to it.