Hummus is one of those things that everybody just loves, but at around $4 for 12 ounces is quite expensive! I rarely find it on sale, either so I decided to try out a recipe I found on allrecipes.com. (modified slightly)


Ingredients

* 2 cloves of garlic
* 1 (19 ounce) can garbanzo beans, half the liquid reserved
* 4 tablespoons lemon juice
* 2 tablespoons tahini
* 1 teaspoon salt
* black pepper to taste
* 2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions

1. In a blender, chop the garlic. Pour garbanzo beans into blender, reserving about a tablespoon for garnish. Place lemon juice, tahini, chopped garlic and salt in blender. Blend until creamy and well mixed.
2. Transfer the mixture to a medium serving bowl. Sprinkle with pepper and pour olive oil over the top.

To go with this I simply warmed 3 pita breads I had on hand in the freezer at 350 for about 5 minutes, then sliced them into eighths. I have to say, this hummus was fresher and more delicious then any store bought hummus I have ever had!



Homemade Hummus Savings

Now, since this about saving money, it's time to look at the price of the recipe. Many of these are well-known, common ingredients. Since I didn't have the prices of these handy, I simply decided to estimate the prices. The one rare product was the Tahini which was about $7 for 15 ounces.

* Chick Peas - Total: $0.75? per can - Cost Per Recipe: $.75?
* Tahini - Total: $7 for 15 ounces - Cost Per Recipe: $1?
* Lemon Juice - Total: $2.00? - Cost Per Serving: $0.50?
* Garlic - Total: $2.00? - Cost Per Serving: $0.20?
* Salt - Total: $0.75 - Cost Per Serving: fractions of pennies
* Total for the recipe: $2.45

This savings between $3.99 and $2.45 may not seem like much, but you get an extra four ounces when you make it at home. Also this hummus is extremely easy and can be made in about 3 minutes using many ingredients that you have around the kitchen. For a lot of people, that's not bad return for the time spent.