Lions and Tigers and Garlic...OH MY!

So, J has been loving "The Wizard of Oz" which she either calls "Oz" (Sounds like "ah") or "Toto." I think she watches the whole movie just for Toto. (Although she does like both the lion who roars at the beginning of the dvd, and the Cowardly Lion. She's a lion girl.)

She has also been loving hummus.
She's eaten it before and liked it. But then about two weeks ago we had dinner with our new small group and there was some hummus there. It was her choice of the evening. Loved it, and instantly started saying "hummus" ---- many times that night, and every day since.

I don't always feel like its easy to feed her since she can't have dairy, and you know toddlers, they don't always makes sense as to what they like.

So her liking being obsessed with hummus is awesome news to me. Easy, healthy and diary free.

So the other day I ran to Aldi to get our week's groceries, and hoping for some strange reason they would have magically started carrying garbanzo beans so I could make her some of this magical food. They did not have the beans. But they do sell pre-made hummus. Which was fine with me. I grabbed some. But they only had one version of it on the shelf: garlic lovers! I thought, "Oh its no big deal hummus has garlic in it."

I got it home and opened it to feed her some, and...wow yeah--- garlicky!

She loved it and ate it and ate it. ALL DAY!

Well...when I went in to get her out of her crib the next morning, the room reeked of garlic!

I tried all day to offer her any other food we had, and never mention hummus. After my long list of delicious options, she would simply say "HUMMUS!"

So two days straight of lots of garlic lovers hummus invading a 20 month old's body was starting to overwhelm both our entire house and my pregnant senses.

I sent Blake out to buy some garbanzo beans and whipped some up this morning. And very purposefully omitted ANY semblance of garlic from my batch.
Then immediately threw the store bought stuff away!


How did I make my hummus?
Its really easy.
I'm no hummus connoisseur, so this is not really the "right way" to make it. You are suposed to use tahini, which I think is sesame seeds ground into olive oil. And probably a couple other fancy things. But I just use what I have. Because it tastes good to me, and its cheaper, and simpler.

I just throw a drained and rinsed can of garbanzo beans (also called chickpeas) into my food processor with some salt, lemon juice and olive oil --- all to taste. And blend till it looks creamy. Done!

(My pregnant tongue is in love with lemon, so I went heavy on the lemon juice and it tastes like heaven!)


J accepted this homemade Hummus with just as much zeal as the store bought stinky stuff. So... all the better to smell you with, my dear!

I'm almost embarrassed to take her to church tomorrow, because I don't think the garlic is going to make it out of her pore's by then. And I feel bad for any nursery workers who have to play with her. Its really intense!
I wonder just how long its going to take to get out!! I hope its soon! I can only handle this for so much longer before I need to sign myself into the looney bin!
This experience is almost enough for me to never allow garlic into my body for fear of the torture I may be putting others through!