Tahini-less hummus

I’ve been making hummus for my brown bag lunches for about a year. Typically, this involved me cracking open a can of garbanzo beans and tossing that in the food processor with some olive oil, salt, pepper and siracha. While tasty, the result was a little dry. I stubbornly refused to buy tahini – the sesame seed paste that gives real hummus it’s velvety texture.

Why?

Um, tahini is $7 a jar and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Some food is worth extra money – ground up sesame seeds are not.

So, I hid my sub-par (but tasty) hummus from the world and chowed down behind magazines and knitting at lunch. The shame was too much to bear.

So, when I got the hankering for hummus yesterday, I decided to try something new. We had just gone grocery shopping and scored a good deal on red peppers. Roasted red pepper hummus sounded perfect! I think the water from the pepper, combined with another new ingredient (lime juice) helped whip my hummus into shape. This batch was silky, smooth and spicy. Perfect for cheapskates like myself. Please take the fact that there is no photographical evidence of this hummus as proof that it is amazingly tasty. It doesn’t last long.

Ingredients:

1 red pepper (or a half a jar of roasted red peppers)

1 can of garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed

½ cup of olive oil (give or take)

¼ cup lime juice

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1 tablespoon fresh ground pepper

1 teaspoon shallot salt (or garlic salt or celery salt – whatever)

Roast the red pepper in the oven at 375 for about a half hour. Peel the skin and de-seed.
Put all ingredients in the food processor and turn on high for 3-5 minutes.
Eat with chips. YUM.