Hummus: an epic

Sometimes a girl just wants a little hummus.  Is that too much to ask? 

It's all Shrinky Dink's fault.  She recently introduced me to my new boyfriend, Walmart's roasted garlic hummus.  (You can find it in the deli section--if you're lucky.)  Walmart has 4 varieties of deli hummus:  original, roasted red pepper, spinach and artichoke, and roasted garlic.  I've never met a garlic clove I didn't like, and I had a hankerin' for hummus, so off to Walmart I went.

I now believe that there is a conspiracy against garlic lovers everywhere, for the Walmarts around here are always out of the roasted garlic version.  I trudged to no fewer than 3 Walmarts this week in a fruitless search for my beloved Mediterranean snack.  With high hopes, I raced to the hummus aisle.  And there, mocking me, was a gang of hummi:  Mr. Original, Sir Roasted Red Pepper, and that sassy Spinach and Artichoke.  I can still hear the echo of their laughter.

Bruised but not broken, I vowed never to go hungry for hummus again.  By golly, I would make my own hummus!  No more relying on The Man for my fix.  I found a good recipe and with a determined air, I went out to gather the ingredients.

Fate was not on my side in this endeavor.  The first obstacle was that Walmart doesn't carry garbanzo beans.  Nay, the closest thing I found was that dubious legume, the chickpea.  I took this as further evidence that Walmart has a monopoly on hummus.  After scoping out a few other stores without success (now the chickpeas were mocking me!), I went to a Mexican market.  ¡Eureka!

Next on my list was tahini.  Whimsical gal that I am, I went shopping for said ingredient without knowing what it is.  I searched high and low for that meanie, tahini.  Once again, I was denied.  In desperation, I ventured into an Asian market.  I was told that they don't carry tahini, but they do carry sesame seeds.  How annoying!  I needed tahini!  What do sesame seeds have to do with that?!

A kind friend took pity on me and gave me a recipe for hummus that doesn't include tahini.  I was beginning to feel hopeful once more.  I assembled my ingredients and set about my task.  I blended together the garbanzo beans, oil, water, cumin, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and lemon juice.  Man.  It looked really watery--more like soup than dip.  I scooped out some of the liquid, then added more garbanzo beans and spices to thicken it up.  Things were looking better, but my blender was ready to give up the fight.  Apparently, it draws the line at blending 4 cans of beans.  Undeterred, I gave it a good talking to.  It rallied and my first batch of hummus was born!

Here's what I learned:

1.  Chickpeas ARE garbanzo beans.  (DUH!)
2.  Tahini is made from sesame seeds.  (" ")
3.  When you use canned beans in a hummus recipe, you can leave out the cups of water the recipe calls for.  The water was for cooking raw beans.  (Sigh...)