Hummus
Instructions:
If you have a pressure cooker, cook the beans with that. If you don't have a pressure cooker, soak the dried beans for a day (24 hours) in a big bowl with lots of water (the ration is 3 to 1 beans). They'll bulk up quite a bit – 2 or even 3 times the size. Keep that in mind.
To cook the pre-soaked beans (without a pressure cooker), drain and rinse them first. Put them in a big pot. Fill the pot with water so the water sits at least 3 inches above the chickpeas. Put in a teaspoon of baking powder. Do NOT put salt. Bring the beans to a rolling boil and let it boil for a good 10 minutes before turning down the heat to let them simmer steadily until they taste 'done'. You want them beans to be mushy, as mushy as possible. If you're cooking a lot of beans, it may take as long as 1 ½ to 2 hours, even more if you want the mushier. Once the beans are cooled a bit (but not too much), it's time to mix it up:
In a food processor – pre-mix your garlic, olive oil, lemon and tahini.
Mix in a food processor until it comes out to a consistency not too dissimilar to mayonnaise.
This will flavour about 3 large coffee cups of well-cooked chickpeas.
Add warm water in small amounts while mixing if the consistency is too dry.
As if that wasn't enough information...here are some tips:
Because there are so few, the quality of the ingredients is pretty important, especially the tahini.
Optional:
You can dress-up your hummus by adding things to the mix like: Black olives (pureed or coarsely chopped), carmelized onions, roast garlic instead of using it raw (though you'll need more garlic as the taste is dulled with cooking), roasted red peppers, herbs like parsley, spices like tumeric, cumin, cayenne pepper, black pepper...
Hummus tastes great fresh or cooled and when eaten with bread provides all essential amino-acids.
It doesn't stay fresh forever, though. The shelf-life of this hummus is a week, sometimes longer if you're lucky. If hummus is a staple in your diet consider making big batches (like 4 or 5 times the recipe) and freezing what you won't consume in a week. When thawing the hummus, some of the water may separate from the mix but generally it dethaws pretty nicely and taste good.