You've probably had hummus out of one of those little tubs before. You know, the ones that cost $3.50 for like 10oz. and have preservatives in them? Once you make it yourself, you'll never go back.

Step 1: Ingredients and Equipment

Equipment
A food processor or similar food destroying device
A bowl
A spatula

Ingredients
2 15oz cans of canned chick-peas, drained
2/3 cup tahina/tahini/sesame seed paste
juice of 1 large lemon
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cumin

Recommended for eating with your hummus:
pita
olive oil
paprika
olives

Step 2: Chop Up Garlic

Put your garlic cloves in the food processor and run it until your cloves are chopped finely.

Step 3: Tahini

Tahini behaves a lot like natural peanut butter. If you have a new can of this stuff, you will need to make sure the oil is mixed into the actual paste, or you will have a very hard block of dry sesame seed paste at the bottom, and sesame oil at the top.

Step 4: Everything But the Beans

Put all your non-bean ingredients (i.e. the salt, cumin, lemon juice, and tahini) into the food processor. You can blend if you like, but it's not strictly necessary.

Step 5: Garbanzo Beans/Chick Peas

Open your cans of chick peas, but don't throw out the bean water! You can use this to add moisture to your hummus if you need it. (I did this at the beginning)

Now toss the beans in the food processor.

Step 6: Garnish and Enjoy!

I grew up eating it with olive oil and paprika on top. I'm pretty sure this is an Israeli way of doing it, though don't quote me on that. You can also put pine nuts, chick peas, or olives on top as garnishes.

This makes enough so that you'll have a lot of leftovers. It keeps well in the fridge in a plastic container of some description.

Eat with some warm pita and enjoy!