Can’t Go Wrong Chickpea Stew

Never fails, whenever I park it on the couch with my laptop, Shadow thinks it’s his personal scratching device.

Using the air compressor to blast grey cat fur from laptops is a regular chore around here. He gets overwhelmed when both hubby and I are on the couch with laptops going back and forth. While Leela sits on the other couch pouting about not getting enough attention. Or guarding her personal sofa.

Sometime over the weekend, I stashed dried chickpeas in the fridge to soak for a weeknight meal. They seemed perfect for tonight since I was craving curry. I grabbed the basics for a curry chickpea soup:

• 1 cup dried chickpeas, soaked at least overnight
• 3 cups veggie broth
• 1 tbsp. curry powder
• 1 medium onion chopped
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 clove garlic, minced

I just caramelized  the onions and garlic in a little coconut oil, then added the chickpeas, broth, curry powder and salt to the mixture to simmer for 30 minutes in a medium soup pot. I cleaned out fresh ingredients that needed to be used up to add from the fridge while simmering – a very ripe tomato, slightly wilted spinach, yellow peppers and corn I got in last week’s farm box, a couple of tablespoons of nutritional yeast, and a dash of red curry powder for a vegan pheasant stew.

Not sure why hot stew appealed to me when it was 94 degrees today, but I can be just special like that sometimes. Luckily it turned out perfectly, a little spicy kick, creamy, rich, and very filling. The chickpeas still had a firm texture, but weren’t crunchy, and carried the curry flavors and kick.

But I think the hot stew got to me towards the end and I threw together a quick dessert salad of fresh watermelon and pineapple chunks with chopped peppermint leaves, simple and refreshing.

Those three simple ingredients do amazing things together, think I need to invent a summer cocktail using them in the Vita-Mix. :-)

I promise the office reveal pics are coming soon, I’m still organizing and working on a cable management system. So frustrating on weeknights not having a lot of time for fun projects!

What projects are you not getting enough time for?