Chickpea Delight

It's recipe time y'all! This next one is a staple of mine, I usually make it at least once a month: it's great to prepare on a Sunday night as it makes enough for almost the whole week's dinner and the ingredients are very wallet-friendly. Plus the flavors only get better as the week goes on! I tend to improvise a little bit each time so I encourage you to get creative and maybe even go off the grid :-)

Ingredients

Base ingredients

• 1 14oz can chickpeas 
• 1 22oz can crushed tomatoes
• 1/2 white onion, chopped roughly
• 1 sweet potato, softened and cubed
• 1/4 lb chorizo
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tsp olive oil
• salt, pepper
• pinch chili flakes, cumin, etc
• 1 cup rice
• creme fraiche/sour cream/crumbled feta

Start off by preparing your rice. A few years ago my good friend FT taught me the secret to perfect rice: use a ratio of 2:1 water:rice. So for 1 cup rice, cook with 2 cups water. Bring the water to a boil, add the rice and take down to medium-low heat. 20 minutes later and rice is ready! But I digress. I've also used couscous so if you're going that route, don't start until you're at the simmer stage of the chickpea mixture.

Simma Don-NA

Next, grab a large, deep frying pan or a wok and saute the garlic and onions together in the olive oil. If using chorizo, add this now along with the sweet potato. Once the onions are soft and chorizo is slightly browned, add the chickpeas and stir slowly until everything has mixed, about 2 minutes. Add the crushed tomatoes and any other spices you want. I sometimes also add a pinch of sugar if the canned tomatoes taste bitter. Bring to a boil then simmer for approx 5-10 minutes.

Scoop out a portion of rice, add your chickpea mixture. I usually top with some creme fraiche, sour cream or a crumbled feta depending on my mood (or how spicy I went!) Put the remainder in Tupperware to cool on the countertop and there you have it: chickpea delight!

What a delight of chickpeas!!

P.S Chickpeas are the best! How did your delights turn out?