Sprouted hummus recipe

[Caveat: Not a Southeast Asian recipe]  Like many urban West Coast folks, I love hummus.  Hummus became my go-to snack three years ago when I was trying to stabilize my blood sugar.  I found that store bought hummus (even the expensive artisanal, locally made hummus I got from Whole Foods Market) is too tart for my tastes from the efforts to preserve it with lemon juice or citric acid (which is not derived from citrus but is a chemically extracted corn product that contains free glutamates).  So I started making my own.  At first, I used tahini, but it required going to a Middle Eastern market not typically on my usual grocery run.  Since I had limited energy, I bought sesame seeds.*  It's not that much more work and it's cheaper.  I use organic unhulled sesame seeds which have a slightly bitter taste although my picky kid doesn't notice.  If you don't like that, you can try sprouting or toasting the unhulled seeds (I've never tried) or using hulled/white sesame seeds.

• 1 cup of garbanzos (aka chickpeas) soaked & sprouted or 1 can of organic garbanzo beans, drained & rinsed
• optional 1 inch of kombu or 1 tsp kombu
• 1 cup of unhulled sesame seeds or tahini/sesame paste.
• 1/2 cup or so of real olive oil (I use MoonShadow Grove Mission Estate Certified organic EVOO)
• 1 clove of garlic if you like it spicier, I use 1/2 tsp of dried garlic b/c my kid is sensitive.
• 1/2 to whole lemon juiced (to taste)
• grey or celtic sea salt to taste
• optional paprika
•  1/2 to 1 cup of water
• optional pitted olives

Soak garbanzos overnight in filtered water.  Drain and use the runoff water for your garden.  Leave in bowl or colander.  Rinse and drain daily until it sprouts.  It should sprout by day 3.  Cook garbanzos.  I put it in a pressure cooker for 10-15 minutes with 4 cups of water with the kombu (helps to breakdown the indigestible carbs that make us gassy) and let it naturally depressurize.   If you don't have a pressure cooker, you can boil them in 5 cups of water and kombu for 3 hours.

Add all the ingredients except for olives to a food process and pulverize until creamy.  Add water until the consistency is right for you.  Add olives and pulse until minced.

Makes about 2.5-3 cups.

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!

*You have to have a food processor or powerful blender to puree the sesame seeds.