Hummus Fail - or - Why I Can Chickpeas

My sister lives some distance away, from both me, and the area in which we grew up, and she has ever since she married a sailor and moved away, at the ripe age of... well, never mind!   Just accept that it's been a long time. I visited her in her home for the first time, a few years ago, and in addition to entertaining us, she fed us some great home-made snacks.  I had never had hummus before, but I really enjoyed spreading her hummus on some sesame crackers.  In fact, both my Honey and I enjoyed it so much, we badgered Sis until she gave us the recipé!  We've been making it ever since. I won't publish the recipé here, because it's not mine to share, but until recently it seemed nearly foolproof.

Last weekend we had our youngest two grandchildren stay with us for a couple of nights. During our preparations for receiving them, my Honey said that I should make some hummus, because the kids apparently really like it; so, thinking that we might need a lot, I decided to make a double batch.  I had been using one particular brand of chickpeas for some time, with very satisfactory results, and I just happened to have two cans on hand.

After gathering all of the components together, I drained the chickpeas, and threw the entire lot of ingredients into our food processor.  That pretty much describes the procedure for making this kind of hummus.

Instead of our usual tasty, creamy paste, however, I ended up with something akin to gruel.  It still tasted good, but was much too watery. I had carefully measured all of the other ingredients, so I know for a fact that the amount of liquid and solids from them was normal.  By deduction, then, my hummus was short on chickpeas!

I don't know if it was a one-time packing error, or if it signals a permanent reduction in how much actual food is placed into the can, but I decided that the next batch of hummus that I make will have a full complement of chickpeas!

Since I'm not Superman, I don't have X-ray vision, and I obviously can't see inside a sealed can.  As far as I have been able to determine, nobody sells chickpeas in glass jars; so the only way available, to insure adequate amounts of chickpeas, is to start with dry ones.

Now, when you have a sudden inspiration to make hummus, having to pre-soak and cook dry chickpeas is pretty darned inconvenient. It kind of ruins the spontaneity. The only way around it, is to use canned chickpeas, and the only way to be sure that the can is full of chickpeas, and not just canning water, is to have them canned in glass jars.

So now you know why I decided to can my own chickpeas.  I don't do this as a long term storage solution, but a convenience-food solution.  The method is tedious, but relatively simple, and it works not just for chickpeas, but for pretty much any dried legume.  You can read about the entire process at the National Center for Home Food Preservation website.

Anyway, now you know how I spent my Saturday, and  I'm looking at enough chickpeas, canned in my one-pint glass jars, to meet my normal hummus consumption needs for about seven months!