Throughout the ages teens have turned to hummus to sate their after-school hunger and provide them with a yummy and quick snack that will hold them ’til dinner. Long before toga-wearing teens returned home from school at the lyceum, ground-up chick peas were a staple on many family menus. Today they’re easy to find, cheap to buy, and pack a punch in the protein department. Together with a few ingredients they whip up into hummus in a snap.

Before 4000 B.C. in Palestine and on tables in ancient Rome, teens tossed tahini, or sesame paste, into to the mix. But if you don’t have any tahini around that’s OK. We think this hummus stands on its own just fine.

Yummy Hummus
A Cooking Teens Original
© Rising Moon Media, 2009

Ingredients
2 large garlic cloves
1 can (15 ounces or so) garbanzo beans (a.k.a. chick peas, a.k.a. cece beans), rinsed and drained
1 lemon, cut in half
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup plain (NOT vanilla) yogurt
1/2 teaspoon salt

Optional
1/4 cup tahini (Note: if you’re using the tahini, reduce the olive oil to one tablespoon and reduce the yogurt to 2 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons crumbled feta
1 tablespoon roasted red peppers, drained
a couple of leaves of fresh mint or basil, or the leaves from a sprig of parsley or rosemary

To Prepare
With the back of a fork or a mortar and pestle mash up the garlic cloves with the salt. Toss this paste into a food processor. Then add the beans, the oil and the yogurt (and any and all of the optional ingredients, if using). Then squeeze into the mix the juice from one half of the lemon. Process for about a minute, then taste the hummus. If it’s not lemony enough for your tastes, squeeze in the juice from the other half and process for another minute. If it’s plenty lemony then skip the added juice and process for another minute anyway to make it nice and creamy. That’s all there is to it!
This hummus makes a great dip for cut up veggies such as carrots, cukes and pepper strips, it holds up well to whole-grain crackers or pretzel sticks and it’s yummy as a sandwich spread with chicken or provolone. Or scoop it up with flatbread and fresh salsa, or with roasted vegetables such as tomatoes and eggplant.
Enjoy!
– By Carol Leonetti Dannhauser