The hummus experiment

I bought a jar of tahini last week, mostly because I was so excited about being able to read the label (the transliteration is taxivi in Greek). My favorite application of the delightful sesame paste is hummus, which I have never made before. The "experiment" mentioned in the title refers to the fact that I have no food processor or blender, so I had to finely chop the garbanzos and hope for the best.I combined a few different recipes I found online to come up with the following:

~150 g dry garbanzo beans
4 tb lemon juice (to taste)
1-2 tb tahini
2 cloves garlic
1/2-1 tsp salt (to taste)
1 tb olive oil
water (for consistency)

After over an hour of mincing with that tiny knife, I had what could generously be referred to as a "rustic" hummus.
It doesn't have the smooth texture I'm accustomed to, but the taste is fantastic (especially if you are a garlic fan). I must have eaten a cup in one sitting, but it was well deserved after all that chopping. I probably won't do this again because it is so labor intensive, but it's good to know I can in case of emergency.

On a different note, you may have noticed the nutella jars in the first picture, which are holding lemon juice and salt respectively. I am a big advocate of saving all containers that seal (either jars with threaded tops or tins with snap on lids) instead of buying tupperware. It keeps the material out of the landfill and reduces the demand for plastic goods. Plus you've already paid for it, so why not put it to good use? There are also some stores, like Nature Mart, that let you bring in your own containers to use for bulk items (if your bulk store doesn't have this policy, talk to someone in charge about preweighing your containers).