Not your average hummus

Last week at work, Melanie was eating spinach and artichoke hummus.

That sounded delicious to me, so guess what I did?

I searched until I found a recipe that appealed to me. My search wasn't as easy as I had expected it to be. A lot of Spinach and Artichoke dips popped up. I had to weed through them to find the hummus version. A hummus version that didn't require baking or cooking.

I want to throw everything into the food processor and pulse it 'till it's right.

Which can only mean one thing. If I'm writing about it, I made it.

The recipe I found was on a blog. And the writer actually did suggest cooking the spinach. But, "ain't nobody got time for 'dat" so that was when I searched again and randomly picked another recipe which did not require cooking.

Back to the original recipe/blog. She suggested "popping" all of the garbanzo beans out of their shells. She said it would make for a creamier hummus.

Now I haven't made hummus since we lived in Savannah (I think) and I burned out the motor on our poor little small capacity mini food processor.

The hummus I remember making wasn't as creamy as I had hoped. This blogger said that by removing the shells your result would be a creamier hummus.

Bingo!

So I grabbed a bowl, the empty garbanzo bean can, and the strainer full of rinsed garbanzo beans and plopped myself in front of the tv. I watched an hour long show on the DVR in the time I shelled all the beans (two cans worth). Which means I spent forty-five minutes working on those beans.

It really wasn't that difficult to do, just a little time consuming. Actually, I found it to be slightly therapeutic; popping each bean out of the shell.

Then, I got to work making the hummus. I tried it that night and it was good. The blog suggested I let it sit overnight to let all the flavors meld. When I tried it the next day, it was even better.

I have a few friends who lovingly tease me about all the homemade things I make. Like homemade syrup (I don't tap a tree, I just use brown sugar), or homemade peanut butter.

This reminded me of the peanut butter. I shelled every single peanut. I think it took me around two hours (I wasn't paying attention, all I remember is I was watching the Olympics, I think it took around two hours though). But in that case, the results were minimal. The peanut butter was good, but the pound or two of peanuts I had shelled resulted in a teeny tiny dish of peanut butter. I'd rather pay for the natural stuff at the store.

For hummus, it's the opposite. The price of a can of beans (or for this recipe two cans) far outweighs the cost of ready-made hummus. It's the tahini that gets you at the beginning. But that too eventually pays for itself because I used all of two tablespoons for this recipe. The tahini comes in a 16oz. jar. That means I can make hummus fifteen more times.

As I think about all the additions, I start to wonder which is actually cheaper, but since I keep the other ingredients on-hand (olive oil, garlic, spinach, artichokes, salt & pepper), I'm calling it a moot point.

Then, add in all the work it takes. Shelling the beans; time-consuming but definitely made for a creamier hummus. The food processor did the rest of the work.

I think the hummus speaks for itself and I will continue making it from scratch. Which means I'll have the money to buy orange juice. But that's another post for another time.