On Today's Menu: Hummus

For this week's attempt to add to my By Hand project, I decided to make one of my favorite appetizers: hummus.

Here is a ingredient list for hummus that I found on the internet:

- 4 garlic cloves, minced and then mashed
- 1 15-oz cans of garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained and rinsed
- 2/3 cup of tahini (roasted, not raw)
- 1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt

Here are my ingredients at the prep stage:



Here are the preparation instructions provided by the website:

- In a food processor, combine the mashed garlic, garbanzo beans, tahini, lemon juice, 1/2 cup water, and olive oil. Process until smooth. Add salt, starting at a half a teaspoon, to taste.

After I read the instructions, I immediately ran into a problem. Since I am not at home, I did not have access to a food processor. The best I could make do with in my college apartment was a blender. Having to make do with what was at my disposal, I was reminded of the idea of Yankee Frugality in Rachel Lawrence's "Making Do: The Aesthetics of Frugality," which we talked about extensively in class.

Here is a picture of all my ingredients being mixed into the blender: (Trust me, the finished product taste better than it looks!)



After I used the blender in place of the food processor, I could definitely see the disadvantages of using the blender. From the picture above, it was obvious that I perhaps pulverized my ingredients a little too much. Perhaps, if I had access to a food processor my ingredients would have been handled in a more gentle fashion. Nonetheless, I was still a able to get a good amount of hummus from the bottom of the blender.

The finished product:



In the end, my hummus turned out to be the perfect afternoon snack!