Homemade Hummus

Yesterday I tried this promising recipe for tomato basil quinoa.  In addition to what it sounds like, it also has broccoli and white beans in it with a hummus-based sauce that is poured over the top (that also had nutritional yeast in it!).  I was really excited to try it.  But honestly, the base was very Italian and the sauce, very eastern.  It tasted forced and incohesive to me.  This in conjunction with the fact that I had to add a lot more water (or stock in my cooking preference) than the recipe called for, it just wasn't a keeper.  Though, both my kids did manage to eat it all and everyone was very polite about it, so I guess it wasn't a total loss!

All that being said, I was excited with the homemade hummus recipe that I used as the base for the sauce!  I've heard it's VERY hard to make something that's a good consistency and tastes like what you'd get in the stores, so I was ecstatic to find a good recipe on my first try!

I will say, this really is a good base, and while it could stand alone, I think it could be better with some other flavors added in.  I want to try to make some purees (Sabra has a garlic and a red pepper variety that are just fantastic!) to change it up, but here is the base-recipe I used:


Authentic Middle Eastern Hummus*
Ingredients:
-3 cups dried garbanzo beans, soaked for 24 hours**
-1 pinch baking soda (optional)
-1/2 cup EVOO
-3/4 cup tahini paste (eastern sesame seed paste)
-1/4 cup fresh lemon juice, or more to taste
-1 large clove garlic, minced, or more to taste
-1 teaspoon ground cumin
-sea salt to taste (and by this I mean go nuts, usually I'd just do one crank on my grinder when I say "to taste" I probably did more than 10 cranks because this makes so much)
-1 Tablespoon EVOO, for drizzling (optional)
Instructions:
1. Rinse the garbanzo beans and place in a large sauce pot.  Fill with enough water to cover by at least one inch.  Add baking soda (optional).  Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer over medium heat until the beans are very soft (1.5-2 hours).
2. Drain the beans, RESERVING THE LIQUID.  Transfer beans into a blender (or if you have a hand blender, a large bowl).  Add olive oil and blend until smooth (add reserved liquid as needed to help blend and get it to the desired thickness).  Blend in tahini paste, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, and salt.

*If you are using a standard blender to prepare this recipe, I HIGHLY recommend splitting the batch in half and doing it in two parts.  It makes roughly 8 cups and it was very difficult to manage all at once in the blender.
**A word on soaking: Use a large glass or ceramic bowl (never plastic or metal), hot water, a little bit of apple cider vinegar or lemon juice (about 1/4 cup), fill most of the way to the top with water, and cover.  Make sure you rinse thoroughly.  Here's some great reading on why soaking is a great idea for ALL of your grains, beans, and nuts: 
http://www.yogitrition.com/why-you-need-to-soak-your-grains-beans-nuts-and-seeds/
and here's a great article on how to do it::
http://www.yogitrition.com/soaking-grains-beans-nuts-and-seeds-101/


If you're looking for a health-conscious way to enjoy those fresh pepper and cucumber slices, this is a tasty addition to mowing down on them plain and, for me as a ranch addict, is a reasonable substitution for those store-bought dressings!  Plus this is a great way to make the most of those fat-soluble A, D, E and K vitamins (our bodies have trouble absorbing A, D, E and K when they're not consumed with fat as well!)!  Hope you enjoy your crunchy vegetable goodness!!

Here's the Allrecipes link to the original recipe I found:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/authentic-middle-eastern-hummus-chummus/