Lunch- Homemade Hummus

I started the new year off,  like I usually do, trying to eat healthier and lose weight. With us having had eight months of unemployment in 2011 and the price of food, (Anybody else get nauseated buying groceries these days? Wow!), I need to find creative ways of  keeping my grocery costs down.

I prefer snack type lunches and hummus is a favorite. Over the Christmas holiday I had the pleasure of eating authentic hummus made by someone originally from Syria. It was delicious and so much tastier than any store bought that I have tried! I knew I had to learn to make it and I knew it would be cheaper too! So, I used my new favorite internet source, Pinterest, to try and locate an authentic recipe, I was not disappointed. Desert Candy had a detailed blog post on hummus and an authentic recipe. The picture of the finished hummus, with the drizzle of olive oil and cumin,  looked like the one I had previously eaten.

The recipe was not difficult at all, the only thing that was difficult, well not really difficult, just time consuming,  was removing all of the skins from the chick peas. Most of them come off pretty easy after soaking overnight and the rest were picked off after the peas were cooked. From what I had read about making hummus, removing the skins is necessary for smooth hummus.

I didn't have tahini on hand, in fact, I have not made hummus before now due to the price of tahini. I was craving that hummus and I seriously  thought about making a special trip to the store and getting tahini, but I am really trying to limit trips to the store and save money on groceries. I had a bag of sesame seeds in the freezer and decided that I would make the tahini myself. After the seeds were lightly toasted I made a paste using  a coffee grinder, (only used to grind flax and sesame seeds for bread baking). I added a little drizzle of sesame seed oil and then just a little of the water the chickpeas were cooked in. Thankfully that worked and now I will save even more by making my own authentic hummus!

It is so good! If you like hummus you should try this recipe!