Letters from Liz: Hummus

Yesterday in my fifth grade art class I said something to one of my Lebanese students, but he wasn't paying much attention.

"Huh...miss?" he responded.

Trying to be funny, I replied, "What? Why are you calling me hummus?? Do I look like a type of food to you? Or maybe you're just so hungry, you have hummus on your mind."

He did laugh and also apologized, " I'm sorry miss, I meant to say hummus!"

At least he knows what hummus is, some of the kids had blank stares. Little known fact...(or maybe it's well known and I just just happened to find out for the first time)...but did you know that hummus is believed to have originated from the country of Lebanon? Oh boy can they make some hummus!

A fact about Liz... I love hummus!

The first day I went food shopping here, I was more than a bit overwhelmed. I walked around, our local food shop, completely overwhelmed. I couldn't even remember what I liked to eat, or what things I would need to buy for the week.

The only food I really thought of was, 'man, I sure hope they have hummus here in Nigeria.'

That first day, all I could find was a can of "hummus" in the can goods isle right next to the beans. Eww. I didn't get it, but Sam, the other girl who is new with me, obviously loves hummus as well and bought it. It looked just as unappetizing outside of the can as I thought it would.

I was a bit sad, until I discovered a Lebanese restaurant within walking distance from our house that makes homemade hummus!! My joy is complete. Creamy delicious fresh made hummus!

I kept buying it every week until last week, when I realized it is actually kind of expensive for the little bit that they give you... 700 naira(around $5).

If course as a lover of hummus, this was a sacrifice that I was willing to pay, until I thought, 'why don't I try making my own?'

Last week I bought a bag of chick peas and cooked maybe 1/3-1/2 of the bag, which gave me a huge pot of cooked beans. I made some hummus and froze the rest of the beans. I also realized why the recipe said to keep it in the fridge for 3 days (day 5 it did not taste so great). It makes you wonder what Sabra and all of those other store bought brands put in their hummus to keep it fresh.

Here's a little glimpse of my hummus making process. Fresh ingredients are key! Tahini, fresh lemons, garlic and of course some great olive oil!

Oh garlic, lovely garlic. I could go off in a tangent about how amazing garlic is. I use it in just about everything. Ok maybe not everything, but I do use it in a lot.

Today I took all of the beans out of the freezer and made hummus at one time (It's too much work to do it every time I want some hummus), but decided to freeze most of it.

I made enough to fill this casserole dish!

Look at that massive amount of hummus!! My mouth's just watering looking at it!

Let's just look at the cost for a minute. The entire bag of chick peas was 700 naira, the tahini was 800 naira, and lemons and garlic are next to nothing at the market. I still have about 2/3 of a bag left of chick peas and I made about a months worth of hummus today!

I'll have to let you know how freezing it turns out, but it sounded like it should work!