I love hummus. In fact, it’s number one on my list of awesome vegan friendly foods. I eat it all the time. My favorite lunch time fare is grilled pita bread layered with hummus and veggies. Or, when I’m a feeling a bit peckish, I just dip some fresh peppers or those cute little baby carrots in its creamy goodness and I have a quick and healthy snack. Needless to say, due to my addiction and the fact that a little tub of hummus runs me about $4 a pop I thought I would try my hand at making it myself. Most recipes I found called for canned beans. I really try hard not to use canned beans simply because of the amount of sodium found in most of them. Of course, they do have organic, low sodium versions but those cans cost like $2 each. Since the whole point of me making my own hummus is to save money, going that route would seem a little pointless.
Now I consider myself a pretty avid bean cooker. I have a nice, big shinny crock pot just for this purpose. I cook all kinds of beans; black beans, pinto beans, mung beans, kidney beans, you name it bean, I’ve probably cooked it. I have not, however, ever cooked chickpeas or garbanzo beans if you prefer. In fact, I never really even liked the little things. I remember eating one as a kid and thinking the same thing my son thought about my hummus, “It taste like poop.” They also look like someone chopped the knuckles off a bunch of little babies. It freaked me out a little bit. This is the reason I have steered clear of them most of my adult life. Imagine my surprise when I found out the most awesome food on the earth is actually made from these weird little buggers.
In preparation for my venture into hummus land, I made sure to get all the best ingredients. The dried chickpeas were easy enough to find but try as I might, I could not find Tahini paste anywhere. That’s part of living in the south I guess. Luckily, I was able to order a big jar from this hippie looking farm company that makes all kinds of raw and organic foods. FYI: if you don’t know what Tahini is, it’s basically ground up sesame seeds. No, I don’t know how to pronounce it correctly and I always end up called it the “tai-hee-tee” sauce even though I am sure it is much simpler than that and it’s actually a paste not a sauce.
Everything else on the list, I already had in my pantry, all I had to do was soak the chickpeas overnight and then boil them the next day. While the chickpeas were cooking, Dalton actually commented several times on how good they smelled. He kept bugging me to make the hummus but as chickpeas take about 2 hours to cook, he had to wait. Once they were done, I gathered all the ingredients and let Dalton throw everything in the blender. Within a few minutes, I had a nice big container of the best stuff on earth. Normally, hummus is severed cold but there was no way I was waiting another few hours just to taste this stuff. I was in heaven. Grant it, it wasn’t the best hummus I have ever eaten but this was my very first batch. I’m sure over time, I will adjust a few things here and there until it is just right, but this stuff wasn’t half bad. I was pretty proud of myself. Than the moment of truth came, would the boy like it? I dipped the spoon into the blender just enough to coat the back and nervously placed it in my 10 year olds hand. Remember, he had been all excited to make this stuff. He had been bugging me all day long, couldn’t wait to taste it because it sounded so awesome. I just knew he would do me proud and love this stuff just as much as I did. It felt like everything was in slow motion as he lifted the spoon to his mouth and smeared the hummus on his tongue. He did that whole tongue smacking thing people do when they’re taste tasting something, looked up at me and said:
“It taste like eggs and poop.”
“It does not.”
“Yeah it does. It taste so bad, I would rather be shot to death than eat it.”
“Really son, is it that serious?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna go play video games now.”
A little piece of my soul died right there in that kitchen as I watched him toss the spoon in the sink and bounce away to his bedroom. I had such high hopes too. Oh well, at least he tried it, which is something I do have to give my son huge kudos for. No matter what it is, he will at least give it a taste before he says he doesn’t like it. I however, LOVE it and I am super excited that I have a huge tubberware bowl of it sitting in my fridge right now. I will be living off the stuff for the next few days.
If you’ve never tried hummus, I suggest you do. I wouldn’t run out and buy all the stuff for it simply because Tahini is hard to find and well, I’d hate for you to waste good money on something that is just going to sit in your fridge. Hummus has become increasingly popular so finding a tub of it at your local super market shouldn’t be too hard. Now if you’ve already had hummus and truly understand the pure yummy power it possess, you probably already have your own little recipe; but I’m going to share mine with you anyways. It’s a combination of several different recipes I’ve seen and just adjusted a few things to meet my specific taste. For me, I love lemon so I add a bit more than someone else may normally would. I’m also pretty sensitive to salt (I use Kosher by the way) and I only used ½ teaspoon instead of a full. I personal prefer my olive oil blended into the hummus instead of drizzled over it like most recipes say to do. Once you get the basic recipe down, it’s super easy to just have fun and play around with it.
Humus Recipe
About 2-2 ½ cups chickpeas (one 19oz can if you’d rather not spend forever in the kitchen)
½ cup of reserved water (either from the pot or the can)
4 tablespoons lemon juice (I use more simply because I love lemon)
2 tablespoons tahini
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
2-4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
Cumin to taste
Put everything in a blender and just blend until smooth. You can add more water as needed depending on how creamy you want it to be. The great thing about hummus is that you can pretty much add whatever you want to it. I have even see recipes where people use white beans or even black beans instead of chickpeas. The only rule to ensuring it is true hummus is you have to have the tahini. There are lots of recipes out there without it, but for me, it just lacks that bit of jazz that makes hummus, well hummus.
Just because the hummus was a misfire with Dalton doesn’t mean I will stop trying to get him to eat more vegan fare. He already loves Boca chicken patties and he really enjoys green smoothies. The next thing he wants to try is vegan cheese. For a 10 year old, that’s pretty awesome.
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