Hummus with Roasted Garlic and Artichoke Hearts

This recipe is a tribute to a recent boozy night with one of my dearest friends from college and our significant others.  Not only did I help drain several bottles of wine, I also decimated a plate of my friend Nichole's hummus.  I hadn't ever had hummus like it and she placed the bowl right in front of me, so yeah - that was pretty much the end of that appetizer.

Here's my adaptation of her recipe ...

Hummus with Roasted Garlic and Artichoke Hearts

2 cans garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 can artichoke hearts, drained and rinsed
one head of garlic, roasted **
about 2 T. of lemon juice
salt and pepper, to taste

Throw all of these ingredients into a blender or a food processor and blitz until it's as chunky as you'd like it to be or smoother than a baby's bottom.  Serve with veggies or pita chips.

My adaptation for this recipe is to roast the garlic.  Nichole minces up about five cloves of garlic (or as much as you can stand, as she put it) for her hummus.  I'm hoping that as the ingredients meld overnight in the fridge, that the roasted garlic taste is more pronounced.  Right now, it's just really awesomely mellow.

**Roasting garlic?  Here's what I do ... take a head of garlic, slice off the top, wrap in foil and place into a 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until you can really smell garlic in your kitchen.  (That's how I figure out when most of my dishes are done ...)  Unwrap the garlic from the foil and let cool.  Then squeeze all the nummy roasted garlic out of the bulb and store in the fridge or use immediately for what you roasted it for.  Or, if all else fails, just spread some of that on a crusty piece of baguette and ward off evil vampires.