Avocado hummus

Some of our neighbors, literally the house next door and directly across the street, host a National Night Out party each year, and block off part of the road. My wife and I had never been involved with anything like this before and if it wasn't immediately in front of our house we'd probably forget about it or not go, our anti-social side would win. But it's been fun, and a big help in meeting and remembering the people on our street the last two years.

I also never know this is coming because the organizing appears to entirely be on Facebook and I never go on there. This year my wife gave me the heads up a couple days before when we discussed that we had no real ideas for what to bring, everyone is asked to bring a dish to pass. The morning of I found a recipe for avocado hummus (here it is) and that looked intriguing. I'd never made any kind of hummus from scratch before but we have a bunch of canned chickpeas (also called garbanzo beans) and I figured it couldn't be all that hard. It turned out great and I wanted to share.

What's needed:

1 can (15 oz) chickpeas, drained (but save and use 2 tbsp of juice)

1 ripe avocado, halved and pitted

1 cup fresh cilantro, roughly chopped

1/4 cup tahini

1/4 cup avocado oil (instead of olive)

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 clove garlic (or 1/8 tsp powder)

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp salt (or a little more)

Quick version:

1. Combine all ingredients in food processor with metal blade, run until smooth

I went to the store to get avocados, cilantro and tahini. When deciding to go to Target I didn't realize it's difficult to find tahini, my wife had gotten it before and I didn't even give it a moment's thought. But after going into the store with three kids (with a visit to the bathroom) and gathering the other items I discovered tahini wasn't available there. And I was not going to attempt another store. After Googling how to make it, however, I grabbed a good sized container of sesame seeds and was on my way.

It turns out tahini is just ground up toasted sesame seeds and oil. It wasn't at all hard to make (I got ~1/2 cup from ~5 oz of sesame seeds following this recipe here) but I would need to rinse out our food processor between making the tahini and making the hummus. Plus this way it's fun that I made this from all raw ingredients.

Once I had the tahini made the rest is really easy. Drain the chickpeas into a liquid measuring cup or something similar, you'll need 2 tbsp of the liquid. Get the edible part of the avocado out. Chop up some cilantro. Measure out the rest. Fwiw I used an 1/8 tsp garlic powder because somehow we were out of real garlic. Maybe go a little heavy on the salt. Put everything in the food processor and let it whir for a while, you want it to be smooth all the way through. Scoop it out and serve. I also provided naked pita chips and carrot sticks (kid #1 did a great job peeling).

After texting my wife that afternoon I got concerned that I didn't make enough, so quickly whipped up a second batch to make it a double. This wasn't necessary and now we have a ton (I probably should've labeled what it was on the table on the street). Oh well, it's good and we'll incorporate it into another meal or three this week. Tonight will be pita bowls!

The biggest thing I learned here is that making your own hummus is really easy and really delicious, especially if you can find pre-made tahini. I'll have to try some other flavors soon, even if avocado was a winner.