Kat's Kreamy Hummus

By special request, I am posting the hummus recipe that my wife Kat showed me. I had never really made hummus before but once I tasted the good stuff, I've come to really enjoy it. The great thing is, you can play around with your ingredients and come up with all sorts of delicious flavors!

Start by combining in a food processor:

2 cloves garlic
1 t salt
fresh ground black pepper

Process until garlic is fine, scraping down the sides of the bowl once or twice. Add to this mixture:

one 15 oz can garbanzo beans, mostly drained, keeping about 1/3 of the liquid

Blend well. While beans are blending, add:

1-1/2 T roasted tahini
1 T + 1 t lemon juice
1/4 c extra virgin olive oil

Slowly drizzle in oil and blend until very creamy. Only use as much oil as necessary. When hummus is nearly done, add flavoring ingredients: 1 T chopped sun-dried tomato and a little of the oil the tomatoes were packed in makes a wonderful tomato hummus! Add 2 T chopped kalamata olives makes an easy olive hummus. Try roasted red pepper, roasted garlic, or any variety of herbs you would like. Experiment!

I will often double the above recipe for parties. Serve it with pita, crackers or sliced baguette. Roasted tahini, a paste made from roasted sesame seeds, might be hard to find, depending on where you live. We get ours at Fred Meyer, a local food market. Middle Eastern halal markets might also carry it but make sure you get roasted tahini. The regular tahini paste is nowhere near as good! Be warned! And happy eating!