Serves: n/a
Cost: ~€0.80
Preparation time: ~1 hour 5 minutes
Calories: ~50 calories per 1 tbsp serving
Greetings folks. I hope you’ve all been having a good week thus far. I returned to work yesterday after an extended weekend involving a couple of vacation days and a bank holiday. It’s weird thinking it “already” Thursday, and will soon be the weekend again, although you certainly won’t hear me complaining! Anyway, here I am, lying on my couch writing this; we’ve just picked up some groceries and my wife is pottering about in the kitchen. I had a sudden urge to eat cake (don’t you just hate it when that bug bites you?). She was also in the mood for a bit of cake and so she’s whisking and beating away in the kitchen right now, making an apple cake. A healthy one mind you – I’m trying to drop a few kilos right now – but a cake nevertheless. No doubt soon the air will be filled with the wonderful smell of baking apple and warm cinnamon. A glorious thing to offset this rainy evening, when I couldn’t even find a parking space next to my apartment building and had to park all the way down the other end of the road. My cat is dashing around the apartment like a loon – obviously chasing invisible mice, or pretending he’s super-cat, rescuing little miss kitty from the clutches of dark overlord Dog – who the heck knows what goes on in the mind of a cat.
Anyway, I digress – I mentioned that I was trying to drop a few kilos. Did I also mention that I have a bit of a penchant for snacks? Therein lies the problem my friends. Snacking is not conducive to a toned, trim six-pack. Segments of apple and kiwi are all well and good but sometimes you want something… something different, y’know? Something salty, with a bit of substance to it. Well – enter the chick pea. Roasted, cooled and served in a bowl these babies will rival the mightiest potato chip! Ok, maybe that’s going a bit far, but a handful of these are better than grease-soaked wafer-thin potato slices. I probably say it a lot but yeah – you can go ahead and customise these just about anyway you like. Have you ever had wasabi peas? They’re a bit like that – oh yeah!
I was looking around because I was sure that at least one of the bloggers whom I read regularly has made a form of roasted chick peas in the not too distant past. Searching around on Google for roasted chickpeas (apparently there’s just shy of 30 million hits!) I saw that it was actually Lisa, from Smart Food and Fit. The last time I checked as well, a post for roasted chickpeas was also one of the most popular items of all time posted to Foodgawker!
I opted for flavourings of garlic, cayenne pepper and cumin. Olive oil as the fat gave a beautiful colour and flavour and they’ve been sitting in a bowl here and whenever I get a bit snackish I can grab a few of these. The cayenne pepper has the added effect of burning up my mouth ever so slightly so that I can’t eat too many in one go! If you’ve never tried these before, I strongly recommend you do. If you have, share your favourite seasoning with me – I’d love to know how you eat them!
Have a great day and remainder of the week and see you all soon!
Garlic and Cumin Roasted Chick Peas
[learn_more caption=”Video Recipe”]
Ingredients
- 1 large can of Chick Peas (~500g)
- 3 tbsps Olive Oil
- 2-3 tsps Cumin
- 1 tsp Cayenne Pepper (adjust to taste)
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Black Pepper
- A handful of garlic cloves
Instructions
- Start by pre-heating your oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Drain the chick peas and place into a large bowl. Add the cumin, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper. Peel and mince the garlic and add this too. Mix well before finally adding in the olive oil and mixing well again to ensure that the chick peas are coated in oil. Place into a large baking tray or roasting pan and transfer to the oven.
- Allow to roast for about an hour until the peas are shrunken and crispy, and a rich golden brown in colour. Stir the peas every 20 minutes or so during the cooking process. Allow to cool before serving as a delicious snack!
commandedkindly asked my wife to make them two nights in a row (because damn, she makes one fine baked potato!!!) and we started doing them in the microwave too... 10 minutes, job done, and so warming and nice! I do hope you have a chance to try this - I'm not sure how many hits it was on Foodgawker... it may very well have been usurped by now. I remember seeing it when I was browsing around some time ago and being shocked. I think my reaction was "chickpeas.... seriously?". I'll tell you my dirty secret about wasabi peas... I suck all the wasabi off and then put the peas in a little pile. Once I have a big pile of about 15 peas, I eat them all at once, lol :D