Chickpea week: the evidence

Right. Perhaps not the most inspiring photos of food but try to look past that.... 

My pie

I looked to Economy Gastronomy for ideas when I was preparing this weeks meal plan. It's a book filled with money and time saving ways to eat great food ALL the time. Perfect I hear you say. Well I thought so too and normally I'm dubious about these kinda things but I'm always looking for new recipes so I thought I'd give it ago. I even bothered to read some of the introduction rather than flicking through hoping I'll land on an all-singing-all-dancing-everything-I-want-it-to-be-kinda-recipe. It's very easy to read, I'd even go as far as to say it's a friendly book. One of the things I've LOVED about it is this idea of 'bedrock' food for example one joint of ham that becomes three nights dinner, a load of mince that starts off life in the same pot that then becomes three very different meals. Brilliant stuff. This is the way my brain thinks- how can I make the most of this. With the chickpeas I made a 'base' that then became three different things. A pie, a loaf and hummus.

This book, or rather Allegra McEvedy and Paul Merrett understand ME...or at least my thought processes. An example: 'I'm encouraging you to leave the hummus-to-be in the food processor, as even though you're going to make the pie first, it really is only a three-minute job to finish this off, and if you put it in the fridge, it just may never happen.' How did they know?! And they were so right. A three minute job that give me that oh-so-smug feeling of I've already got part of Wednesday's dinner made and I am AMAZING. 

Othello's Chickpea Comfort Pie:
(see photo above) I enjoyed making this pie, probably more so because I felt like like I was half way there once the base mix was made (which didn't take long at all!). I definatly felt like I'd cooked something rather than assembled something which was a nice feeling! It's the sort of food I'd give to friends/family that are vegetarians because it's not a curry, a stuffed pepper or a lonesome mushroom. It's fairly straight forward to make but it says 'I made some effort'. 

Spicy Chickpea Loaf:

It was probably foolish to have this for dinner the night after the chickpea pie- but then I was warned! I would probably make these again sooner than I'd make the pie because they would be great for lunches, picnics etc as the book suggests. Tasted great. 

The hummus:

This is probably the thing I was most excited by and the most simple. We LOVE hummus. We particularly love posh hummus and this was just that. Now that we have tahini paste in the fridge I'll make it ALL the time. It's a minium effort maximum reward food and once you've got tahini in the fridge it's cheaper to make your own hummus than buy it. Having followed the recipe once I would be confident to make changed to it by adding different flavours- coriander maybe? Husband quite often has hummus on toast for his lunch, I always mean to make sandwiches but often there's enough left over dinner for him to have Dinner For Lunch. I don't feel so bad now that he can take homemade hummus.