Homemade Roasted Garlic and Lemon Hummus

Roasted Garlic and Lemon Hummus

This delightful dish is great for snacking, a great appetizer, and is a powerhouse of nutritional value!

As we have mentioned many times, garlic is nature's natural antimicrobial. So any time you can add garlic to anything, you should. It helps to fight against bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. We roasted a whole bulb of garlic, but we only used about half of the roasted garlic for this recipe.

Roasting the Garlic

Roasting garlic is simple and delicious. Roasted garlic can be used in recipes or eaten as a snack, or added to other roasted vegetables.  Simply cut the top of the bulb of garlic. Leave the sleeves on the garlic. Pour olive oil over bulb of garlic, add salt and pepper, then cover with foil at 375 degrees for about 30-35 minutes.

Peeling Garbanzo Beans (Chickpeas)

While the garlic is roasting you will want to prepare the garbanzo beans. Some people like to keep the Next you want to open your cans of beans. I used canned beans opposed to dry beans, much faster, and just as healthy. First you want to strain the beans and rinse them. Next remove the husks (The casings). This may seem time consuming but there are many quick ways to remove the husks from each bean. One way is to pour the beans on a towel and gently rub the beans then pour them in a bowl of water and the casings will float to the top. You can also pinch the beans between your fingers and the casings will slip off. Once the casings are off set aside.

Making the Hummus

After peeling the casings off of the garbanzo beans place garbanzo beans in blender. Add the roasted garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, pepper and blend util smooth. 

NOTE: You do not have to cook the canned garbanzo beans, however as a former nurse, I always recommend cooking anything out of a can to kill any bacteria that could have been in the can while packaging. I simply heat the garbanzo beans through with some water in the pot, about 8 minutes.

Recipe

2 Cans Garbanzo Beans

1/4 of Olive oil (More or less depending on how smooth or thick you like your hummus.

2 Lemons. Zest one lemon and squeeze the juice of two lemons (More or less depending on how lemony you like your hummus.) Save some zest to top the hummus with. 

4 large cloves of garlic (Roasted) Again, more or less depending on how much garlic you like. The garlic really shrinks up when it is roasted. 

Salt/Pepper

Parsley and lemon zest to garnish (Optional)

Making Homemade Pita Chips

Making homemade pita chips are so easy! I like to make them when I have left over tortillas so that I don't waste them! Get a baking sheet. Put your tortillas and brush them with oil on each side. Keep them piled up in one stack and cut them into 8 pieces. Spread them out on the baking sheet and add salt. You can also add garlic powder if you would like make them into garlic chips! You can also add other spices to fit your recipes such as Cajun seasoning.