Chickpea

These recipes were obtained by Kalyns Kitchen
I love her recipes and we loved this soup. I over cooked the garbanzo's in the roasted chickpea recipe, it was still good but it could have been better. This was delicious though and we will be making this again. Hope you like:)

Chickpea (Garbanzo Bean) Soup Recipe with Spinach, Tomatoes, and Basil
1 cup dried chickpeas (garbanzo beans), soaked at least 8 hours or overnight in cold water
6 cups homemade chicken stock or 4 cans chicken broth (you could make this a vegetarian soup by using vegetable broth)
1 yellow onion, diced
6-8 cloves garlic, diced very small
1 T olive oil (or less, depending on your pan)
1 can diced tomatoes with juice (I like Muir Glen Organic Tomatoes)
3-4 cups chopped baby spinach (measure before chopping)
2-4 T chopped fresh basil (I used my frozen basil)
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste


Soak chickpeas overnight or for at least 8 hours in cold water. Drain chickpeas and discard water, and pick out any loose skins that have come off.

Put chickpeas in heavy soup pot with chicken stock, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until chickpeas are tender. This will depend on how fresh the dried chickpeas were, but for me it took about an hour. Use a spoon or stock skimmer to remove any foam that appears.

When chickpeas are tender, heat olive oil in heavy frying pan, then saute onions about 5 minutes, until fairly soft. Add garlic and cook 2-3 minutes more. Add onions and garlic to soup pot with diced tomatoes. Let soup simmer on low heat about 30 minutes.

Add chopped spinach to soup (adding a bit more water or chicken stock if needed) and simmer 15-30 minutes more. I used my beloved Braun Immersion Blender at this point to slightly break up the ingredients. If you don't have an immersion blender, you can put about 1/3 of the soup into a food processor or blender and pulse a few times. You can skip this step completely too, if you'd like a chunkier soup.

Stir in chopped basil and cook 5 minutes. Season soup with salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste and serve hot. This is wonderful topped with freshly grated parmesan cheese. (If you have some parmesan rinds, throw them into the soup while it's cooking for even more flavor.)



Crispy Roasted Chickpeas with Moroccan Spices

1 can chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
1 T olive oil
1/4 - 1/2 tsp. Moroccan Spice Mix
salt to taste (I used about 1/4 tsp. kosher salt)

Spice Mix:
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp. chile powder (I used Ancho chile powder from Penzeys)
1/2 tsp. sweet paprika
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground allspice
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
(recipe called for a pinch ground cloves, which I did not have.)


Preheat oven to 350 F. (I was making this in my favorite Oster Toaster Oven, If you're using a regular oven, I'd double the recipe and use a large cookie sheet.)



Drain garbanzo beans into a colander and rinse well with cold water until no more foam appears. Let beans drain for 5-10 minutes, then pat dry with a cloth of paper towel if they still look wet.



While beans drain, make spice mix. (This is great on many veggies, so make the full amount and store in a glass jar.)



When beans are well drained and dried, toss with olive oil, spice mix, and salt. Arrange in single layer on baking sheet. Roast 40-50 minutes, or until they are slightly browned and make a rattling sound when you shake the baking sheet. (I roasted these for 50 minutes, but next time I would take them out a tiny bit sooner.) Serve warm or let cool.

(I think there are a lot of different spice mixtures that would taste good on chickpeas roasted like this. If anyone has a variation that turns out to be tasty, please leave the link in the comments.)