For months I had dried chickpeas in the house. For months I’ve been intending to make hummus. I have a little grandson who loves hummus. It’s one of those things for me, that even though I knew it was simple, I felt intimidated. Well, yesterday, I jumped in with both feet.
The hummus was a snap, until I realized I didn’t have any of the tahini sauce in the house that all hummus recipes called for. Tahini sauce? I had never heard of it. So, off I went into the land of the interwebs to find out what tahini sauce was. At first all I could find was that tahini sauce was very expensive and some people substituted peanut butter. Ummmm. Too easy. So I searched ‘homemade tahini’ and BAM!, there it was. It was so amazingly simple. Off I went to get my sesame seeds. I made two cups of tahini sauce for about $3 which was just enough to put into my 8 cups of hummus.
Hummus:
Soak 4 cups of sorted rinsed dried chickpeas over night. Drain, cover in clean water. Gently simmer chickpeas until nice and soft. Drain. Let cool a bit. Put in food processor with two tbsp garlic, 1 tsp paprika, 1 tsp salt, 3 tbsp olive oil (to start). Process on high stopping to scrap sides frequently. You can add more olive oil if you need to if it’s too thick.
Tahini
2 cups sesame seeds, toast them gently without burning either in the oven or in a heavy fry pan, I bought mine already toasted. Put the seeds in your food processor. Process on high adding olive oil until you get a nice consistency.
Mix tahini into the hummus. Done.
Some very nice friends recommended I needed to have naan bread to go with this hummus. They were right. I have now learned to make homemade hummus and naan. It’s been a good week.