Hummus

Hummus

     If you've got a food processor, a blender, or even a magic bullet, you should be making your own hummus. About a year ago, I challenged myself not to buy anything at the grocery store that I could make myself, and hummus was one of the first contestants. It's so easy to make a hummus that's exactly how you like it, why would you continue to buy the store brand with all those preservatives? 

Choose your chickpeas

The first step to hummus begins with chickpeas, or as their known in Spanish cultures, garbanzo beans. If you're looking for the grand satisfaction of making your hummus completely from scratch, buy dried chickpeas in bulk. Not only does this save you money, but it allows you to an additional opportunity to add flavor to your beans. If time is more valuable to you than a few dollars, canned chickpeas do just fine.

For dried chickpeas:

Soak completely submersed in water for approx. 8hrs or overnight is best. Cover them with clear plastic wrap and punch a little whole just to give them some oxygen.

Drain your chickpeas and prepare some boiling water. This is your first chance to bring flavor into these beans. Adding salt to the water will do, or something like a bay leaf, but I like to add my favorite Rapunzel vegan bouillon cubes. Once I added carrots and onions to the water, the way you make a vegetable broth, and later pureed the same carrots into the hummus. Feel free to replace the water entirely with your favorite stock.

Simmer the beans until tender. Drain, but try to keep some of your boiling liquid to help thin out the hummus later.

For canned chickpeas: 

Rinse, drain, and set aside.

 One cup of garbanzo beans contains 10.6 g of fiber and 11.88 g of protein. -livestrong.com

This hummus was spread on gluten free wraps and topped with fresh basil and roasted veggies for the Catalina Yoga Retreat

Julian's Favorite Hummus

This recipe is my sister's favorite. In fact, for the yoga retreat, I put her completely in charge of making the hummus, only involving myself when it came to tasting for seasoning. 

(This recipe comes from 'The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook' by Nancy Harmon Jenkins)

Ingredients: 

• 1 cup dried chickpeas
• 1 cups water (Tip: use the water that the beans were boiled in)
• garlic1/2 cup tahini (sesame seed paste)
• 1 tablespoon (dark) sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin (or sometimes I use pimentón)
• juice of 2 lemons (or more to taste)
• 1 clove garlic, finely minced
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (plus more to drizzle on top)
• OPTIONAL: pinch of ground hot red chili

Special Equipment: 

• food processor or blender (depending on size, you may have to blend in small batches)

Instructions: 

step 1. 

    start with beans, water, salt, and oil in the food processor. Then slowly add lemon juice, garlic, tahini, and the rest of the ingredients. Tapering in more oil or water until you get the consistency you like.

step two.
   Taste. Add more garlic if you like it garlicy. Try adding basil, pine nuts, or roasted bellpeppers, even.

step three.
    Dip or spread. I love dipping some freshly cut yellow bellpepper into a cold batch of hummus. Warm pita bread is great too. For presentation, drizzle a little olive oil on top and sprinkle some feta cheese and cilantro.
    For the retreat, I roasted veggies (bellpepper, red onion, eggplant, zucchini, and yellow squash), and rolled it up in a wrap with fresh basil and hummus for Saturday lunch. I also do this in the summer on toasted sandwich bread, adding some cucumber & sprouts. Thinking of hummus as a spread and not just a dip has expanded my snacking horizons greatly.

 

Have fun making this hummus your own.