Sometimes I wonder what I ate before I tried hummus.

Seriously, I spent the better part of our 13-mile run a few days ago (marathon training has begun!) thinking back upon my diet over the years. Elementary school was filled with a good amount of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in my New Kids on the Block lunchbox, middle school saw more than its fair share of turkey and ketchup on Tops’ rolls and high school…well high school my lunch went through its own identity crisis.

No where in these formative years do I remember hummus being in the picture. Which leaves me left to believe that, along with things like my sense of self, my lifelong friends, my personal and professional passions, my freaking husband… I also discovered hummus in college. Seriously, where the heck would I be in this world without St. Bonaventure University?!?

Still eating turkey and ketchup sandwiches, probably. And writing “I love Justin Timberlake” in white-out pen on my Trapper Keeper. (Now I just doodle it in my work planner. Totally different.)

Anyways – HUMMUS, people. Hummus. This stuff is like mushy, grainy gold. Especially for vegetarians. I can’t tell you the last thing I ate that I chose not to put hummus on. Veggie wrap? Check. Avocado, sweet potato and quinoa pita? Oh hell yea. Rice bowl with corn, peppers, salsa and lentils? You know I topped it with a dollop of black bean hummus. And by dollop I mean half the container. And by half the container I mean I had to lay down for a little while after I inhaled that meal. But I wasn’t mad about it.

Somewhere in my history of hummus-induced comas, I realized that if I was going to consume this much of the stuff on a daily basis, I should probably start making it. I mean, really – garbanzo beans, garlic, lemon, tahini – how hard could this be?

However, I decided to not measure anything – I was just going to let my hippie hummus spirit fly. Within the first few seconds of throwing stuff in my food processor, I was convinced I wouldn’t be seeing Sabra containers in my fridge for a longggggg time. (“Look at how fluffy it looks! I am such a professional! I wonder how many other 21-year-olds are making hummus at 9 o’clock on a Friday night!”) I grabbed a box of crackers, took a serious dive into the food processor and chomped down what was sure to be the best flipping hummus I had ever eaten.

What the what? HOW MANY FREAKING CLOVES OF GARLIC DID I PUT IN?!? I mean, I know Mama Ro always says “you can never have enough garlic” but I am pretty sure she meant that in the context of cooking a 15 gallon pot of sauce. Not one batch of hummus. I even tried to add another can of garbanzo beans to balance out the flavor, but no dice.

I tasted garlic for three days straight.

That experience, my friends, led me to dive back into the hummus section week after week after week.

Until I found this recipe. I began a separate love affair with edamame earlier this year, so to see an old love and a new love united under the same food processor…I knew a second attempt was necessary. Plus, Angela at Oh She Glows has never, ever failed me before!

One bite of this green glory and it was clear that everything deserves a second chance.

Except maybe, turkey and ketchup sandwiches.