I Heart Chick-a-peas

Hi all

How are you doing this month? We are doing very well here at myprivatedining, despite picking up a few colds, we have managed a steady flow of visitors, outings, new projects and a few decent sized pots of curry. Every month I feel like we are finding better balance and flow as a still fairly newish family. Just coming more and more into ourselves really.

One of my new projects this month involves a ripper of an  interview with a friend (which I will post as soon as I can manage) about the cultural and food consumption changes she has been making in her own household recently. It’s a wonderful insight into the effort and challenges involved not only changing how you eat but changing the approach of the whole family. I’m really looking forward to sharing that with you.

I have also learnt how to crochet this month. Don’t ask me why, more just a desire to do something with my hands I think, and in all honesty I expect it to fall flat on its face at any moment. It’s just for a bit of fun really.

There are a few other things we are cooking up (excuse the pun) which I am very excited about, but I will share them with you later as they progress.

This month’s recipe is a simple one for you. If you are anything like me, you always have a can of chickpeas tucked away somewhere in the back of the pantry. I can’t get enough of chickpeas, they are cheap and easy and I throw them in everything. My husband even went so far as to ask if we could have a month long break from them some time ago, but, what can I say, he missed them more then he thought he would. So, he was very happy to receive them back into his life when I found a bag of dried chickpeas in the back of the cupboard last week. After a good soak, a little simmer and a somewhat therapeutic skin pulling session, we threw them on a bake tray with a little oil, a few spices and a good sprinkling of salt and into the oven. Before we knew it we were picking hot spicy chickpeas off the bake-paper and making windy noises with our mouths as we popped them down our hatches before they were properly cooled.

The only thing I can say is that you may want to eat them on the first day as the few we kept for later snacking really were a bit of a letdown.

Roasted Chickpeas

1 can of chickpeas, drained (you can grab a couple of handfuls of the dried and go the longer route as we did, but either is fine)

Cayenne pepper

Paprika

Punch Poron (seed mixture)

Sea salt

Good olive oil

Cumin

Lay drained chickpeas on a tray with bake paper, drizzle with oil and roll chickpeas around to coat them in the oil. 

Sprinkle with spices (according to your personal taste) and salt

Bake in moderate oven till they only slightly colour, you don't want to dry them out. 

I took them out a couple of times and shook the tray to make sure rolled around and didn't burn on the underside.

Enjoy warm :)