Homemade Hummus with My Make-It-Easy Appliances

My family and I have been eating alot of hummus lately and on my last trip to the grocery store I decided to pick up a can of chickpeas and make the stuff myself.  The first time I ate homemade hummus it was made by my very close friend (probably the nicest person I will ever meet in my life).  She LOVES garlic, and that’s probably an understatement so I’m sure she made hers with 6 or 7 cloves of raw garlic which was a little too potent for me.  The recipes I’ve looked at call for 2 or 3, so I used 3, and I roasted them for a milder taste. 

In the last few years I’ve stocked my kitchen with any appliance that makes cooking and food preparation easier.  My latest addition, the G5 George Foreman Grill, has proved to be as useful as it claims.  There are 5 plates but 2 of them are used for making waffles so it really only has 4 different functions.  My husband bought it for me almost 1/2 price at Christmastime, as well as a new Magic Bullet on sale.  Good ole Canadian Tire.  I find the only problem I have with my new grill is getting used to using it instead of say, turning on the oven.  I was going to roast sesame seeds in the oven for homemade tahini paste and to roast the garlic but caught myself before I’d wasted all that energy pre-heating my oven.  The reason I needed a new Bullet was because the plastic mechanism that turns the blades on my old one had cracked.  I know other people this has happened to and my hummus making friend says the trick is to unplug the Bullet when you are using it in “Lock On” mode instead of trying to unlock it.  This is as technical as I can get when trying to describe this problem so if you have a more valuable description to offer, please do!  So far it seems like the unplugging thing is working but if this Bullet breaks prematurely (like barely a year of use like the last one), I will not be buying a Magic Bullet brand blender/food processor again.  In general however I love my Bullet and use it very often.  A silicone spatula works great to scrape sticky food from the cup.  They really should include one with the Bullet actually.

I turned the grill on high (or 3) and heated it up.  I peeled and cut 3 cloves of garlic, placed them on one side on the baking plate and drizzled them lightly with olive oil.  I might use more than 3 next time or try them raw because I could do with more garlic flavor.  I also minced 4 cloves of garlic in the Bullet and sauteed it in olive oil to top the hummus.  I sprinkled the sesame seeds on the other side of the plate then I closed the grill, turned it down 1 and set the timer to 5 minutes.  I’ve never roasted sesame seeds before and the recipes I looked up range from 5 to 15 minutes in the oven but all agreed to not brown them as it creates a bitter taste.  I figured 5 minutes with grill closed should do and a few of the seeds were starting to brown so I think that was just about right.

Tahini (sesame) paste is basically roasted sesame seeds made into a paste with oil.  Some recipes call for sesame oil (Chinese) while others call for olive oil (Greek).  I have both so I thought I’d use both.  Most recipes online are for making a huge amount of tahini paste but I found a recipe for just about the right amount for my hummus recipe.  I used a recipe for hummus from my Magic Bullet 10 Second Recipes book with a little tweaking.  I almost never use a recipe exactly as it’s written.  I’m a tweaker.  For instance, I found the 2 tablespoons of liquid called for in the hummus recipe was not nearly enough to blend the ingredients in the Bullet, and I ended up using 5 tablespoons or 1/3 cup.  I admit this could have been due to the fact that I used the small cup instead of the tall cup that was recommended but anyways the hummus turned out great and as I mentioned, I think the only thing I will change next time is adding more or raw garlic.  Here’s the recipe:

Tahini Paste

• 2 tbsp. roasted sesame seeds
• 1 tsp. sesame oil
• 2 tsp. olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Place sesame seeds, oil and salt in Magic Bullet, blender or food processor and grind until smooth.  If using a blender or food processor you may need to add up to 2 tablespoons of warm water.

Hummus

• 1 cup canned chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained, reserving liquid 
• 1/3 cup of liquid from chickpeas or chicken stock
• 3 cloves garlic, roasted or raw
• 1 tbsp. lemon juice
• 2 tbsp. tahini paste (or all of homemade tahini paste)

Add all ingredients into the Tall Cup of the Magic Bullet or a food processor.  Twist on the cross blade for the Magic Bullet and blend until smooth.  The traditional way to serve is to pour the hummus into a bowl and drizzle it with olive oil, then sprinkle the top with paprika.  May also be topped with minced sauteed garlic, or bottled garlic.  Serve hummus with toasted pita triangles. 

Toasted Pita Triangles

• whole-wheat pocket pitas (approx. 1/2 pita per person)
• olive oil
• garlic powder

Pre-heat oven to 450 deg F.  Using kitchen scissors, cut pitas into triangles and place on cookie sheet.  Drizzle with olive oil and lightly sprinkle with garlic powder.  Bake for 5 minutes.  For crispier “pita chips”, open up pita pocket by cutting around the circumference of the pita to make 2 thin slices.  Separate slices before cutting into triangles.

For original hummus recipe (larger serving), click here.

For original tahini paste recipe, click here.