Monday, May 25, 2009

Recipe: Curried Chick Peas (Curried Garbanzo Beans!)


I believe that a major part of my success at Veganism is the fact that I’m a very adventurous cook! What sets me apart from the average Joe is taking a recipe, half-assed following the measurements and substituting or adding ingredients because of availability or simply because I think it’ll taste better.

The following is a recipe that started out as simple curried chick peas. I added in fresh tomatoes and sautéed onions and created what has become one of my favourite quick meals.

Ingredients:

1 can of chick peas
2 small or 1 large tomato, diced
1 medium cooking onion, chopped
1 heaping tablespoon of curry powder
1 heaping tablespoon of ground cumin
1 heaping teaspoon of paprika
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

Set your frying pan on the stovetop at medium/low (on my stove it’s setting 4). Peel and chop onion (being sure to compost what you’ve discarded!) and sauté in olive oil. Stir onion often so it does not burn, turning down the burner if necessary. When onion is softened up, opaque and yellow, stir in tomato. Stir in spices and cover for a few minutes until tomato has softened up. Stir in chick peas and cover for another 5 minutes on low.

That’s it! You’re ready to go. I usually dish mine out on top of a few pieces of whole wheat bread and go to town. From start to finish, the whole meal might take 20 minutes to cook and eat. I don’t really have a name for this one, but since it is a bastardized version of ‘Curried Chick Peas’, I’m going to go with ‘Curried Garbanzo Beans’ since Garbanzo is the cooler and lesser used name for Chick Peas.

In fact, if you want to have some fun, see how many stock boys at your local grocers know where to find the Garbanzo beans. Then try the produce boys for scallions (green onions…).

What you’re getting (nutrients contained that are 25% of your RDI per serving, as per nutritiondata.com):

Chick peas – fiber, protein, iron, folate, phosphorus, copper, manganese.
Tomato – vitamin a, vitamin c.
Onion – vitamin k
Olive oil – vitamin e, vitamin k
Cumin – iron
Paprika – vitamin a

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