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Get in the kitchen and make me some: Hummus

Easy Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

Ingredients

  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained
  • 1/3 cup tahini
  • 1/3 cup lemon juice
  • 1/2 cup roasted red peppers
  • 1/4 teaspoon dried basil

Directions

  1. In an electric food processor, combine garlic, garbanzo beans, tahini, and lemon juice. Process until the mixture is smooth. Add roasted peppers and basil; process until the peppers are finely chopped. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer hummus to small bowl, cover and chill until you are ready to serve.
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So my new recipe for this week (I know, I've taken a few weeks off) was hummus. I'm not sure how or why I decided I wanted to make my own hummus, but for some reason I started searching for recipes and bought the ingredients on our last trip to the grocery store.

The first recipe I made was just plain hummus. I didn't really like it at all. It tasted very bland and in Pat's words, "it tasted like rotten peanut butter." How is that for an endorsement of my cooking? ha! You can view that recipe here and I'm sure you would be able to put your own twist on it and spice it up a bit!

After my disappointment with the first hummus recipe, I turned to Facebook to get some feedback from people about their favorite kinds of hummus. Several people recommended roasted red pepper hummus. So I (well actually, Pat) bought a jar of roasted red bell peppers and I put the hummus I had previously made back into the blender and added two roasted red bell peppers and the basil. You would not believe the difference it made! The dip is delicious and I highly recommend the recipe!

The tahini sauce (which is both disgusting in looks and smell, in my opinion) is located in the ethnic aisle at Giant Eagle and only comes in one large bottle, costing about $6. I was a little hesitant to buy it knowing I wouldn't even need that much for the recipe. But after how well the hummus turned out, I know we will definitely be making it again! I found the chickpeas (which I also learned is the same thing as Garbanzo beans) in the same ethnic foods aisle. I didn't use whole garlic, I used garlic powder instead (1/8 tsp. for each clove). I'm somewhat embarrassed to say this but I still haven't cooked with real garlic yet! I think I'm intimidated by it because it's so strong and I don't like strong garlic foods (some Italian I am, huh?). And I don't even own a garlic press! (hint, hint Grandma!). Because I started with a different recipe, I only used 1/4 cup of lemon juice so maybe adding that little extra (the 1/3 the recipe calls for) would make it even better! You'll have to try it out and let me know! We had added a little olive oil and paprika to the original recipe (trying to get some more flavor out of it) so you may want to try that too because it tastes perfect just the way it is.

As for the pitas, I bought whole wheat pita wraps and cut them into triangles with a pizza cutter. They taste great but there is 260 calories in one pita! So the next time I make it, I am definitely going to have to find a lower calorie/fat alternative! Any recommendations?

Finally, to answer some one's question about why I am going to all of the trouble to make hummus myself instead of simply buying a pre-made package at the store, I have several reasons. One, I'm a gluten for punishment. I am really trying to become a better cook and this new recipe each week is a great way for me to do that. Also, I am really enjoying trying to make as many things as I can from scratch because then I know exactly what ingredients are going into it! And finally, I think it's cheaper this way.

I can't be sure because I've never bought hummus before, but here is what I spent: $6 for tahini paste (will make at least 10 batches of hummus), $3 for lemon juice (will make many, many batches of hummus), $2.50 for the chickpeas (only makes 1 batch of hummus), $2.50 for the roasted red peppers (will make 2 or 3 batches of hummus). So I spent around $14 for the ingredients and got a HUGE batch of hummus and will only need to buy the chickpeas to make another batch.

The recipe says it makes 2 cups of hummus, but it seems like it made much more than that!
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