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spiced chickpeas with spinach

Posted on | March 18, 2009 | 16 Comments

Last month I had one of those great Saturdays.  I woke up energized, cleaned my kitchen and immediately proceeded to mess it up by cooking lunch.  Weekend lunches usually consist of leftovers around our house, so this was truly an occasion.

Perhaps it was my neighbor’s gift of fresh cut flowers that inspired me!

I subscribe to a few foodie blogs, Herbavoracious is one.  I have so many of his posts bookmarked, I could almost toss out my cookbooks!  (Good lord, I just checked – I have 14 of his posts as “keep new” in my Bloglines – I need to get busy!)  I can’t remember the post that led me to click here and click there, but I landed on Eat Like A Girl’s blog and found her recipe for Spiced Chickpeas with Spinach.

The opportunity to use my mortar and pestle is likely what sucked me in.  One of my goodgoodgood friends at work gave me this mortar and pestle when she was my secret pal.  Have you ever done the secret pal thing?  It can be very good, mediocre or very bad.  I’ve had all three, and Michele was definitely tops.  She also made our wedding cake.

I swear, it’s just the angle, the cake didn’t tilt.  And it was delicious.  We had tons leftover and ate it for months.  Yum.

Okay, back to our recipe!

After you toast the coriander and cumin seed, you add the rest of the dry spices:

Actually, this may be my favorite part.  I feel like I’m creating a painter’s pallete.

The chickpeas, celery, garlic, ginger, onion and tomato smell fabulous.  Now, the recipe calls for tomato puree, which I couldn’t find in my grocery store, so I used tomato paste and about a half cup of water.   It worked out fine.

I’ll do just about anything for a recipe with fresh spinach.  Even wash and de-stem two cups of it.  This was the most time-consuming part of the whole thing, but well worth it.

The best part comes at the end – juice of half a lemon and “a handful of chopped fresh coriander.”  I have to tell you, I was having fits in the produce aisle – I couldn’t find fresh coriander ANYWHERE!  I decided I’d go with fresh cilantro instead and when I told SB of my “substitution”, I suddenly remembered that coriander and cilantro are the SAME THING.  Duh.  Although, coriander usually refers to the seeds and cilantro the fresh plant.  Learn from my mistakes – cilantro is what you shop for.

We rounded out the meal with toasted whole wheat pita bread and a glass of white wine – French table wine, I believe.  It made a nice meal, not too heavy and definitely healthy, and I made it a second time the following week. 

Again, if you want the recipe, you can find it here.  Thanks, Niamh!

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