Easy Meal Mondays! Homemade Hummus

Hello again everyone!  Welcome to another addition of Easy Meal Mondays.  Today I am not going to be providing a full meal recipe, but a meal component that Jason and I love and eat regularly.  Jason packs carrots and hummus in our lunches everyday and when I am feeling up to is, I make this fresh.  The only (sort of) problem with making this fresh is that it does not keep for as long as when you buy the kind with preservatives.  So here is my easy homemade hummus recipe.  It is adapted from the Williams and Sonoma one.

Homemade Hummus

Ingredients:

• 2 cans of chickpeas or the equivalent amount of chickpeas from dried
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 cup tahini - this is very important.  I have tried to make hummus without the tahini and it does not taste quite right
• 2-4 tablespoons olive oil
• 4-5 garlic cloves
• 3/4 teaspoon salt - this may need to be adjusted if you are using canned chickpeas
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 large pinch of paprika and a drizzle of olive oil for garnish - you can also add parsley as a garnish if you wish.  We are very rarely serving this as an appetizer and are just eating it ourselves, so we do not normally do the garnishing step.  

Directions:

Combine all listed ingredients in a food processor or blender (excluding those labeled for garnish).  Process until a soft, creamy paste forms.  Taste the hummus to see if any additional lemon, salt, or olive oil are needed.  Add these to your preference and blend everything together again.  I also like to check the consistency, because usually when I think it looks good, it still seems a bit gritty to me and needs to be blended further until the consistency is much smoother.  

If you are serving this at a party or event, place the hummus in your serving container and using a spoon smooth out the surface of the hummus.  Make a small well in the surface and drizzle a bit of olive oil into this well.  Then sprinkle chopped flat leaf parsley and paprika over the top of the hummus.  

Let me know if you make this and if you like it!  Until next week!