Garlic Hummus (no blender!)

First and foremost, I must rant a bit. The internet has told me time and again that it is a-okay to put garbanzo beans (chickpeas) in a blender, along with some liquids, in order to make hummus. In a time of dire need for hummus and lack of a food processor, I tried making hummus in a blender against my better judgement. Maybe I needed a better blender than the $5 garage sale one we have at our house, maybe I'm just not as skilled as all those other internet cooks. I just don't know. But I do know that I about killed our blender and then had to spend nearly an hour getting the garbanzo beans  out of the blender and cleaning the wretched thing. So add this to your list of
Golden Cooking Rules:
Blenders are for foods that can become liquid-like (e.g. fruit, yogurt, ice).
Food processors are for everything else, and unlike blenders can handle foods that turn into pastes (e.g. garbanzo beans, thick pesto).

Now, that I feel I've done my moral duty by informing the world about the evils of garbanzo beans in blenders, here's my hummus recipe! The starting point for this recipe came from two places: "Hummus" on About.com http://mideastfood.about.com/od/appetizerssnacks/r/hummusbitahini.htm and "Smooth Simple Hummus Recipe" on Inspired Taste http://www.inspiredtaste.net/15938/easy-and-smooth-hummus-recipe/.

By combining these two approaches, I was able to come up with a recipe which tastes similar, yet better, than the hummus you buy at the store! Encouraged by the results from Inspired Taste, I made my hummus without skinning my chickpeas and it came out beautifully smooth. I also used their idea of adding cumin, which worked well for cutting out some of the earthy garbanzo bean taste. But the base of my recipe came from About.com and here it is:

Garlic Hummus (no blender!)

1 (16 oz.) can of garbanzo beans (chickpeas)
1/4 cup of water saved from the garbanzo bean can
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 1/2 tbsp. tahini
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. lemon juice
a large dash of freshly ground black pepper
2 cloves of garlic


1. Strain garbanzo beans over a bowl in order to save the garbanzo bean water for later.

2. Put garbanzo beans and olive oil in a food processor and blend until smooth. Stop the processor every once in a while to move the smooth parts of the hummus away from the blades and the chunky parts towards the blades. This step can also be done in sections so as not to overwhelm your food processor and to ensure a smooth finished product. I like to have my food processor about half full, so I did 1/4 of the garbanzo beans and 1/2 tbsp. of olive oil at a time. When that 1/4 was done I put it into a mixing bowl and moved on to the next 1/4 of garbanzo beans.

3. Once all of the garbanzo beans and olive oil had been food processed into  a delicious looking paste, I moved all of the mixture into my Kitchen-Aid mixer (you can use a handheld electric mixer instead). Now I added the tahini, cumin, salt, pepper, and lemon juice and mixed it all together in the Kitchen-Aid for about 30 seconds.

4. The last step is to chop up your 2 cloves of garlic real finely and then toss the garlic in a pan of a little hot oil for about 2 minutes. This just brings out the flavor of the garlic and softens it a bit before you add it to your hummus. You can then pour the little bit of oil and the garlic from the pan directly into the Kitchen-Aid mixer. Give the hummus a final mix until everything looks evenly distributed and and smooth.

That's it! Delicious hummus, done as simply as possible* so that you can enjoy the healthy benefits of snacking on hummus without paying for more expensive versions at the grocery store.

* if your food processor is big enough to hold the rest of the ingredients on top of the smoothly processed garbanzo beans, then you can eliminate mixing things in a Kitchen-Aid and just do all of the mixing in a food processor.

Additional notes:
- Hummus lasts for about 2 weeks in the fridge.
- Tahini is expensive and comes in large quantities, but lasts in the cupboard for a very long time.
- Tahini is also difficult to mix, so here's some tips: 1) use a butter knife to break up the solid layer at the bottom of the can 2) when enough of the solids have broken loose, do your best to mix them with the oil 3) once it gets to be too frustrating, just stop and toss abut equal parts solids and oil into the food processor or mixer.

Like life, it all smooths out in the end :)