In which I attempt to make hummus… In the process I learned a few things. That’s what I love about baking/cooking/making food. There’s always something new to learn.
It should first be know that I am The Internet Chef! This is how I do it: In the kitchen we have the “Kitchen Mac” which is used to access our home wiki for recipes, and for finding things on Recipezaar. When I want to make something new, I do a search on Recipezaar, take a look at a few recipes, and then pick the one I like the best. (Now, “best” is determined by many factors: do I have the ingredients? which recipe looks easiest? etc.)
So, on to the hummus. What’s that, chickpeas are also known as garbanzo beans? Wow, I’m learning already! Of course I bought organic chickpeas, and they need to be cooked, so I look up how to cook chickpeas and quickly skim the results, learning that “soak overnight in cold water and boil for 40 minutes” should do it. Cool! Now, since I only live near crappy grocery stores, I could not find tahini. What is tahini anyway? Wikipedia says tahini is a paste made from ground sesame seeds. More learning! So, I need to substitute… what do I have that is paste-like? Hmmm, peanut butter is sort of paste-like. Substitute! I also used sesame oil, hoping that might fill in for the lack of tahini (which is ground sesame seeds you know.) Oh yeah, I also forgot to buy garlic, so garlic salt and garlic powder to the rescue! Ok, they really are a poor substitute for garlic, so in the future I will definitely get garlic. Duly noted. Toss it all into the Vita-Mix and see what happens…
So, did it all turn out ok? Yes. I mean, it’s not the most flavorful hummus I’ve ever had, but it’s ok. I learned how to cook chickpeas (also known as garbanzo beans) and I learned that tahini is a paste made from ground sesame seeds, and that peanut butter is a (poor) substitute for it, and real garlic doesn’t have a proper substitute. All in all it’s a learning process, and next time I’ll know what to do, and it’ll turn out better, and the legend of The Internet Chef will spread far and wide… like a fine hummus!