Roasted Garlic Hummus

Dear Hummus,
Oh how I love thee...let me count the ways!!

I only recently (recently being since I moved out on my own) have fallen in love with hummus. It is amazing stuff! I love it plain, on crackers - carrots - celery, on sandwiches (try it in place of mayo!), and it even makes a mean (and healthier) chicken salad! I have been wanting to try making homemade hummus for a long time, but just really never got around to it. Since I was on a detox recently, for what seemed like an eternity, I had leftover chick peas. I finally told myself last weekend that the time was long overdue and I was making a date with my chick peas and food processor!! Oh my was this stuff good! I probably made way too much of it, but don't worry...it's almost gone!! haha This hummus was so creamy, and it had just the right amount of garlic for us, but we are garlic lovers so you may want to lesson the amount if you don't like as much garlic.

I researched a lot of recipes to get ideas, and while I have not one single source to credit, I want to take an opportunity to thank all the websites I looked at for giving me tips on coming up with a hummus recipe that will now be a staple in my household! I knew I had a certain amount of ingredients I wanted to use, so I just built something that worked for us. And I really am a little of this and a little of that kinda girl, so I just played around with the recipe a bit until I got it to my liking.

Roasted Garlic Hummus

(recipe inspired by many others, but perfected by Liesl)

8 cloves of garlic

2 15 oz cans chick peas (drained and rinsed)

2/3 cup Tahini

Juice from 3 lemons

1 cup of water (maybe a little less)

1/4 cup olive oil

sea salt and fresh cracked pepper

parsley to garnish (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a small piece of aluminium foil with olive oil cooking spray (non stick would work too). Place cloves of garlic on foil and fold edges together, creating a foil pouch. Place in oven and roast garlic for about 15-20 minutes or until garlic is fork tender.

In a food processor (I think you could probably get away with using a blender too), combine the roasted garlic cloves, chick peas, tahini and fresh squeezed lemon juice. Pulse until smooth...mixture will be thick. Slowly add olive oil and continue processing. Once the olive oil is combined, slowly add the water...I started by slowly pouring in about 1/4 cup at a time until I got the consistency I wanted...which I am pretty sure was about 1 cup. But you may need less than that, just process until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve in your favorite dish. Top with parsley if desired. This will keep well, covered, in the fridge for about 1 week. I wouldn't push it to much longer than that.