Drain and rinse the chickpeas: Drain the chickpeas and keep the liquid to the side. If time and patience allow, pinch the skins from each of the chickpeas and discard; this will make your hummus smoother.

Combine ingredients in the food processor: Combine the chickpeas, olive oil, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, salt, and pepper in the bowl of the food processor fitted with the blade attachment or blender.

Blend hummus until smooth, probably 5 minutes: Process the hummus continuously until it becomes smooth, about 5 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed to mix well. Note that if you left the skins on the chickpeas there will always be some texture to the hummus no matter how long you blend.

Taste and add additional flavors: add more of any of the ingredients to taste. If your hummus is stiffer than you’d like, blend 2 to 3 tablespoons of the reserved chickpea liquid to thin it out and make the hummus creamier. This is where I added in my pesto – it doesn’t need to be pulverized so you can toss items like that in at the end and give them a quick pulse. Pesto, olives, sundried tomatoes (but probably not together!) there’s almost no end to the flavors you can add.

Serve: Pour into a bowl, and maybe add a little drizzle of olive oil for flair. Here I added an additional square of pesto on top so some of my dips into the bowl had even more flavor! Then enjoy!