Cilantro Jalapeño Hummus

Panera Bread has a fantastic Mediterranean Veggie sandwich on their menu. I like this sandwich so much that I tried recreating it at home recently. I purchased most of the ingredients required for the sandwich at an adjacent Trader Joe's, but decided to make the cilantro-jalapeno hummus, an important component of the sandwich, myself. I tweaked my roasted red pepper hummus recipe from a few years back to come up with this one. While this did not taste like the original Panera spread, it was really good and came pretty close to the real thing.

Ingredients:

• 1 can (15 oz) chickpeas/garbanzo beans, drained
• 2-4 Tbsp lime juice or lemon juice
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 jalapeño
• 1 small bunch cilantro (I used the stalks as well)
• 1/4 cup kefir (optional- I only used it because I had difficulty bringing the hummus together in my food processor, but in the end, it did result in a smooth and creamy spread)
• 3-4 Tbsp olive oil
• ½ tsp roasted cumin powder
• Salt to taste
• Pepper

Method:

Place all the ingredients (except the oil) in a food processor and blend well. Add the olive oil in a thin stream, with the processor still running, till the hummus comes together. Season with salt and pepper.