Hummus ...
My Aunt Lucy has always made the very best hummus I have ever tasted. It is delicious with Tortilla or Pita Chips, and or fresh red and yellow and green peppers, some carrots. A mighty fine Hors D'oeuvres.
Finally I asked for the recipe so here it is:
1 cup Chick Peas (Garbanzo Beans)
juice of 2-3 lemons
1/2 cup Tahini
3 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. salt
paprika for garnish
warmed pita bread or chips
It is very, very easy. Essentially all you do is put everything in a blender and press the button. I have a mini-cuisinart so that's what I use. If you too have a mini-cuisinart, a tip: blend the garlic first (and for the record, I don't use 6 cloves I use 4) then put the lemon juice in there before you put in the chickpeas (which you need to strain and rinse, just a little bit, before you add them to the blender), and the rest of the ingredients, so that the blender has plenty of liquid to work with on the chickpeas & tahini. (you'll see what I mean... it can seem a bit dense at first). Also, I don't use 1/2 teaspoon of salt, I use hardly any (my aunt uses none), and I rarely get around to garnishing with the paprika.
And another thing: the recipe asks for a cup of chickpeas which always meant for me that there were some chickpeas left over. Which in turn always meant that they went to waste because I would put them in the fridge and forget about them and then have to chuck them out. A few months ago, I was in Aunt Lucy's kitchen and she asked me to make the hummus so I asked her what she did with the remaining chickpeas. She looked at me like I was a bit of idiot and she said, "I use them in the hummus!" Her shoulders shrugged. "What good are they for anything else... what do you do with them?"
I can't remember if I told her what I did with them but now, yes, I just use the full can. Simple.
late add: when I sent this post to my aunt she emailed me back saying "you sure make the hummus recipe sound complicated, I just put everything in my cusinart and spin." And of course, I tried it, all in at the same time. The mini-cusinart was in fact able to handle it ... so simpler than simple.