One step forward, two steps back

Last week, I decided to try my hand at making hummus without relying on canned Goya chickpeas. My usual method (borrowed from my sister, who is the real cook here) involved rinsing the canned beans and boiling them until they started falling apart. This makes the hummus really smooth, but requires you to babysit the beans for at least a couple of hours since you have to repeatedly add more water to the pan.

Given the amount of work required for the canned beans, I assumed the dry ones would be a real nuisance. To my surprise, they weren't. I could have soaked them overnight, but instead, I decided to just boil them for a few hours and see how I did. The result was virtually the same. My real challenge came when I discovered that my tahini had separated...Still, I threw it all into our VitaMix blender, whipped it until it was smooth, added some roasted red peppers from a glass jar (thank you very much), spooned the hummus into a glass bowl and back into the jars I bought the peppers in and called it done.

But as I was washing out the hard plastic blender pitcher, I realized it probably was made out of BPA, too.

A little googling revealed that it was.

So much for that!

PS. The good news is that VitaMix, acknowledging the issue with BPA's, now sells a BPA-free upgrade to their traditional blender. You can check it out here--

http://www.vitamix.com/household/products/super5000/5200faq.asp

http://www.vitamix.com/household/infocenter/5200Release101907.asp