Backwoods Hummus and Tahini Paste

 It turns out a food processor is sort of a "must have" to make this incredibly thick deliciousness. I used my blender because I don't own a food processor. I now no longer own a blender because the thickness of the hummus fried the motor on my blender. My hope is that after the motor has cooled down the blender will recover. First the waffle maker took a crap and now the blender. It's a good thing garage sale weather is coming because, there are always waffle irons and blenders a plenty, for sale at bargain prices.

If you are a hummus aficionado then you will cringe to learn that I used orange juice and great northern beans. This is my adapted version of the recipe on the back of Bob's Red Mill brown sesame seed bag. Traditional hummus is made with lemon juice and garbanzo beans. Don't knock it until you try it. Here comes my backwoods version of hummus.

Backwoods Hummus

4 cups of canned great northern beans and the liquid
1 cup of Tahini paste (see recipe below)
3/4 cup of orange juice
4 cloves of garlic smashed
4 tsp. cumin
1 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp. fine sea salt
a few dashes of balsamic vinegar
cracked black pepper if you want it. I wanted it.

In a food processor add the first 5 ingredients and pulse until combined. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil until you have a delightfully creamy mass. Add sea salt, and balsamic vinegar to the mixture and pulse a few more times to combine. Chill and eat. Anything and everything is delicious dipped in this stuff.


Tahini Paste

1 package (16 oz) brown sesame seeds
3/4 cup of olive oil

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Pour the entire bag of seeds on a dry cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes, stirring often to make sure they don't burn. Cool the seeds for at least 20 minutes. Once again this is where a food processor would come in handy. Blend up those toasted seeds and slowly drizzle in the olive oil creating a wonderful nutty butter. Makes about 2 cups. Refrigerate and this will keep for about a week.

Next up....I'm baking the Flourless Tahini Cookie recipe on the back of the sesame seed bag. I have all of the ingredients so... no more Backwoods recipes are forth coming.

You didn't really want to see a photo of a bowl of beige stuff hummus did you? Hummus isn't exciting to look at it. Please use your imagination and visualize a lovely bowl filled with tasty hummus.