Chickpea Salad Wraps

These wraps were easy to throw together using things I already had available. You can totally make this with canned chickpeas but if you can cook your own on the stove top or pressure cooker, it will be even better.

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Adapted From My Favorite Pastime

Salad

2 cups cooked chickpeas, rinsed and drained

2 Roma tomatoes, deseeded and diced

1/2 red bell pepper, diced

2 to 4 green onions, diced

Dressing

1/4 cup oil

2 TBS lemon juice

2 TBS tahini paste

1 TBS water

1 garlic clove, crushed

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp ground cayenne or black pepper, to taste

1/2 tsp salt, to taste

In a small bowl, combine all salad ingredients. Mix well.

In small jar, combine all dressing ingredients. Cover with a lid and shake like crazy. This will give you a very creamy dressing. Add two tablespoons of the dressing to the salad and mix well. Use the rest to drizzle over the top of the wraps.

To make the wrap: Lay the tortilla or wrap on the counter. Add 1/3 to 1/2 cup chickpeas to the center of the tortilla. Don’t over stuff them. Fold the sides toward the middle and the bottom towards the middle and roll tight.

Note: I served the chickpeas I didn’t use in wraps on a salad, drizzled with the remaining dressing.

Spinach, Chickpeas and Egg Nests

Since I got my 2 quart pressure cooker in August, I have made about 7 1/2 pounds of steel-cut oats.  That wouldn’t be so amazing if I was feeding a family of 4 but I am not.  I am feeding myself and 2 greedy rats that eat about 2 tablespoons of oatmeal each morning or as a snack. Even as much as I like oatmeal, this is getting ridiculous.  I really need to expand my morning menu.

That’s harder to do than a person would think.  It is cold here in North Dakota so I like to start the day with something warm and hearty.  However, I am not a morning person so things can’t be too complicated or time-consuming.  I just not up to that much most mornings.

This recipe meets all my morning criteria, it is certainly hardy with the addition of chickpeas.  It is relatively quick and easy, even though I have to cook the eggs a lot longer then the directions state because uncooked egg white grosses me out.

This recipe is originally from Food Heaven Made Easy.

Spinach, Chickpeas, Egg Nest

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1 TBS olive oil

1/4 cup onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups spinach

1/2 cup tomato sauce

2 eggs

salt and pepper

In a pan or skillet, heat the olive oil.  Add the onion and garlic. Saute over medium low heat for a minute or two.  Add spinach and saute with the onion mixture until it wilt, about 1 minute.  Add the chickpeas and tomato sauce.  Cook together for 3 minutes over medium heat ,with the lid on.  Crack your eggs on top of the tomato / spinach mixture.  Allow them to cook without the lid for 5-6 minute or until the eggs reach the desired doneness. 

Chana Masala and A Review

Every so often I get totally consumed, kind of obsessed, with a cookbook.  There is something about the food that just speaks to me and I want to totally cook everything in the book.  This summer that cookbook was Raghavan Iyer’s, 660 Curries.  I have loved everything I have tried from this book and that doesn’t happen very often. Usually, I try one or two, maybe three recipes from a cookbook then I get bored and moved on to the next one. There is enough variety in 660 Curries to keep me interested for a very long time.

The curries represent all regions of India.  I really like that the first chapter of the book gives you all the spice blends that are used in the book.  Many of the Indian cookbooks I looked through relied on store bought spice blends that I don’t have access to.  I was lucky to be able to find almost all the spices I needed at my favorite natural food store and a local Asian market.  A few things like fresh curry leaves, fresh fenugreek leaves and Nigella seeds weren’t available but there are more than enough recipes that don’t use these things to make the book worthwhile.

My biggest complaint is there is no Index of what spice blends go with what recipes.  So you can have several spice blends made but no idea what recipe to try them in next. I have just been making  a list of spice blends and what recipes use them as I find them when I am looking for a new recipe to try.  On the whole I would recommend this cookbook if you are looking to learn how to make Indian food.

I am a huge fan of chickpeas so I absolutely loved this recipe for Chana Masala.  I cooked my chickpeas in the pressure cooker but if you don’t have one feel free to use your favorite brand of canned chickpea.

Chana Masala

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1 TBS canola oil

1/2 tsp whole cumin seeds

1/2 tsp ground cumin seeds

1 TBS ginger paste

1 1/2 tsp garlic paste

1 TBS tomato paste

1 1/2 tsp ground coriander

1 1/2 tsp fresh lime juice

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp ground turmeric

2 cups cooked chickpeas

2 TBS finely chopped fresh cilantro

3/4 tsp kosher salt

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

1 1/2 cups water, divided

Heat the canola oil in a large sauce pan over medium – high heat.  Sprinkle in the whole cumin seeds and cook until they sizzle, turn reddish brown, and smell nutty, 5 to 10 seconds.  Immediately lower the heat to medium and carefully stir in the ginger and garlic pastes and stir -fry them until they turn light brown, about 2 minutes.  Stir in 1/2 cup water and the tomato paste, coriander, lime juice, cayenne pepper, tumeric, and ground cumin.  Simmer, partially covered, until the water evaporates from the reddish brown sauce, 5 to 10 minutes.  Pour in  1 more cup water, the chickpeas, 1 TBS cilantro, and the salt.  Raise the heat to medium-high and cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens, 15 to 18 minutes.  Sprinkle the remaining cilantro and onion over the curry, and serve. 

 

Hummus, 2 Ways

One thing the pressure cooker is awesome at, among many things, is making dried beans in the fraction of the time it takes on the stove.  It takes less than one hour to cook most dried beans even if you forget to soak them, which I always do.  Seriously, it takes about 2 1/2 to 3 hours to cook chickpeas, my favorite bean, on the stove.  It takes 40 minutes to cook chickpeas in the pressure cooker if I forget to soak them and 15 minutes if I remember to soak them.  WOW!!!

So I have been cooking a lot of chickpeas lately and  making a lot of different things with them.  My favorite chickpea dish is hummus.  I like the fact you can make a simple hummus and it is as delicious as a complicated, fancy hummus.  There are so many variations online and I am sure you could come up with many more. Here are my two favorite variations, one simple and one fancy.  I don’t remember where I found the pumpkin hummus idea but it is really good and perfect for the fall weather that is up on us.

If you don’t have a pressure cooker to make your chickpeas, feel free to use a good brand of canned chickpea instead or cook your own on the stove.

Small Batch Hummus

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2 cups cooked chickpeas, drained, reserving the liquid

2 TBS olive oil

3 to 4 cloves garlic, minced

¼ to ½ cups parsley

Drain the chickpeas reserving the liquid.  Place the chickpeas in a blender or  food processor.  Add the olive oil, garlic and parsley. While pulsing the blender, add the bean liquid one tablespoon at a time until the desired consistency is reached. 

Pumpkin Hummus

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1 15 oz can chickpeas (2 cups)

¼ cup chickpea liquid

6 TBS pure pumpkin

2 TBS lemon juice

1 TBS olive oil

1 ½ TBS tahini or natural peanutbutter

1 large garlic clove, minced

½ tsp pumpkin pie spice

½ tsp paprika

½ tsp cumin

Drain the chickpeas reserving the liquid.  Place the chickpeas in a blender or food processor.  Add lemon juice, olive oil, tahini, garlic and spices.  While pulsing, add the chickpea liquid one tablespoon at a time until the desired consistency is reached.

Chickpea Toss

I am finding more and more reasons to love me new camera every time I take it out of the bag to practice. Today’s reason to love my new camera is the flexibility it gives me to take pictures in different lighting situations. When I was taking pictures with my tablet camera, it had to be a bright sunny day to take any food pictures. I would have never even bothered to try and take pictures on an overcast, gloomy day like today.

With my new camera, I can take pictures in any lighting situation. I just play around with things like shutter speed, aperture, and flash exposure compensation until I get a decent picture. So even though Photography 101 is over and I am not posting assignments here anymore, I am still practicing with and learning about my camera.

I always find chickpeas a little on the dry side so I am working on some sort of gravy or sauce for this recipe. As is, however, it is a quick and easy vegetarian recipe.

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ingredients
1 small onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp dark sesame oil
¼ cup olives, chopped
2 cups cooked chickpeas
½ tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper
1 tsp curry powder
In a large saucepan, set on medium high heat, saute onions and garlic until translucent. Reduce the heat to medium. Add the olives, chickpeas, salt, pepper and curry powder. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

Adapted from How It All Vegan or In The Garden of Vegan I can’t remember which and I can’t check because I loaned the books to my friend, Steph.