Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Curried Chickpeas

It's nearly summer but you would never know by our recent weather.  It's been raining, hailing, thunderstorming and today we had funnel clouds, one touching down a ways north of us.  I wanted something hot, filling, satisfying and of course spicy.  Beans are always the first thing I think of.   Wanting curry flavor, it just took on a life of it's own.  Here is what I ended up with...

Ingredients:

1/2 onion diced
1 orange bell pepper diced
1 15 oz can of salt free garbanzo beans drained and rinsed
1 8oz package of green beans...I like the "haricort vert", the skinny French ones, chopped into bite size pieces
1 24 oz can of Trader Joe's whole Roma Tomatoes with juice.  Chop or cut into more manageable bite size chunks
1 heaping TBS Curry Powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/8 - 1/4 red cayenne pepper
Red wine for sauteeing  Cab or Zin

In a large pan sautee in 1/4 - 1/2 cup of red wine the onion and bell pepper until thoroughly cooked, about 10 minutes stirring occasionally.  Add chopped green beans and garbanzos.  Cook about 10 minutes more stirring.  Now add all the spices and heat through for about 1 minute stirring. Now add the tomatoes and juice.  If getting too dry at any time add more wine to the pan and if you like to your glass:)  This is best if you let it simmer for about 2 hours for the spices to blend and lose that rawness.  Stir about every 15 minutes.

I served this over brown rice with steamed spinach.   We also had little baked Sierra Red potatoes with it.  This was a hit with Bob too.