Chickpeas

We planted a rapeseed field last summer and the field man for the crop stopped by the other day to take a look at the field, but this time he brought gifts!   I love gifts and these were very unusual ones, four bags of lentils and a recipe book.  It’s a good thing he brought the book, since I hadn’t ever cooked with lentils except from cans I bought in the store.  So, I decided to start with the chickpeas and make some hummus.

 

 

 

 

The Pea & Lentil Cookbook had all the information I needed to get started.  I soaked the chickpeas overnight, not really knowing how much they would yield after they swelled up, well, I soaked up way to many the first time.  After the fact, I read that 1 cup dry =2 cup cooked.  So I cooked them all up anyway and froze 2 pints for later.  That was a good thing too, because I had 2 containers of chickpeas ready to make hummus with, all I had to do was unthaw and mix.  So I will probably make that same mistake again, this time on purpose!

 

 

Dry Chickpeas

 

 

The recipe is in the book, so I really don’t think I should share it, but I did find lots of recipes on the web.  I had to look for an ingredient that I had never used before and that is tahini.  It is a sesame paste and it was in the grocery store, I just had never noticed it before, imagine that!

 

 

Soaked and Cooked Chickpeas

 

 

After soaking the peas and cooking them, I used my handy dandy food processor to mix the ingredients up and then I had hummus.  It was so easy and very good; we ate it all up in two days!  It’s good for you too, so much better than ranch dressing, although my son Jesse isn’t quite convinced!

 

 

Spicy Hummus

 

 

The other lentils were dry split pea, Red Chief lentil, and Spanish lentil.  I haven’t tried anything with these yet. Do you have any ideas or recipes?  I would love to hear them, just leave me a comment.  Oh, one other thing, if you ‘follow me’ in the blog you will get notified when I make a new post, just sayin!

 

 

Red Chief, Spanish Lentils, and Split Pea

 

 

 

We have been having a few thunder storms lately and I have been taking some pics and trying to figure out the right settings for getting the ‘perfect picture’.  Here is a couple that I shot.  If you have any pointers I would appreciate it.