Chickpea and Sun-Dried Tomato Hummus

A delicious, high-protein snack

I've told you before about my absolute love for legumes, chickpeas in particular. Canned chickpeas are definitely at the top of my list of pantry staples, and maybe even a desert-island must for me too. Hmmm, maybe my desert island should be located someplace where chickpeas grow in happy profusion, for instance in the Aegean Sea. Do chickpeas flourish in the Aegean Sea? I've no idea, although it's kind of nice to imagine.

But I digress. I've made this Mark Bittman-inspired hummus recipe a few times since it appeared in the New York Times just a few weeks ago, and I love it. I take scoops of it with pieces of crisp flatbread when I start feeling hungry in between meals. Hummus is a great nutritious high-protein snack. It's not just for potluck, people!

This version turns out a lovely shade of ochre with the addition of sun-dried tomatoes and pimenton, which is smoked Spanish paprika (another must-have for the spice rack).

For some reason, Bittman goes to the trouble to cook his chickpeas first - while this does provide good, tasty liquid to moisten the spread, it's not what I call fast. I've found that cooking chickpeas can have iffy results. I try buying them at stores that seem to stock fresh dried beans, but I have no patience for them. Most of the bulk dried chickpeas I've taken home take way too long to cook. After a few hours of boiling what seems like a potful of pebbles that never seem to soften, I reach for a good old can. And for this recipe, which otherwise comes together in a snap, shaving a few hours off the prep time is a good thing.

I also go for the oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes here, rather than the dried ones he calls for. I think they add rich olive-oily moistness to the hummus.

This spread is simply fantastic as a dip, but I've also spread some on tortillas with a little goat cheese for killer quesadillas.

If you're a fan of chickpeas, you might also like these recipes:

Cashew Chicken with Roasted Spiced Chickpeas

Olive Oil-Poached Shrimp with Chickpeas and Feta

Chickpea and Sun-Dried Tomato Hummus

inspired by Mark Bittman

1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas, drained
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/3 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
2 tablespoons tahini
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, plus more to taste
2 teaspoons smoked Spanish paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 small garlic cloves, coarsely chopped

Place all ingredients in the workbowl of a food processor. Pulse until you have a relatively smooth paste (I don't mind if it's a little chunky). Taste and season with more lemon juice and salt, if needed. Scrape down the sides of workbowl and pulse briefly to combine.

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Copyright (c) 2008 FamilyStyle Food

Protein Rush: Provencal Lentils with Spinach

This doesn't taste like diet food to me...

I saw my friend L at our weight training class at the Y the other day and noticed how svelte she looked. When I asked her about it she told me she's been on the South Beach diet for a few months now, and not only is she losing weight and feeling fantastic, but her eating habits have changed; like she no longer craves bowls of pasta for dinner and bagels for breakfast. Instead she and her husband (who's shed more than 20 pounds so far) are eating more lean meats and salads.

It made me think about how my own food preferences have evolved of late. While there is no denying that I will happily shovel a bowl-full of spaghetti into my pie hole, more often than not these days it'll be the whole wheat kind. My ten-pound bag of white jasmine rice sits aging in the back of the pantry closet because now I make brown rice instead.

I'd never been a dieter; until I had kids I was one of those people with a "fast" metabolism -- I could easily eat my husband under the table and never gain a pound. And don't even talk to me about low or no carb -- I become a mean, unhappy person when deprived of a large hunk of crusty bread or some kind of starchy sidekick with meals. But a few years ago I examined a photo of myself looking bloated, pudgy and so unlike the me I used to be that I wondered "Who is that?"

I wanted to lose weight without feeling restricted by a diet. Giving up whole categories of food just wouldn't work for me -- I like eating a little bit of everything. I also believe that diets work in the long run because they force you to pay closer attention to what you put into your mouth -- something that our eat-and-run culture seems to have forgotten how to do.

I started getting on the treadmill every day, slowly working my way from 30 minutes of walking to 45 minutes of running. And although I didn't conform to any strict plan, I became aware of what foods I was eating and made what at first seemed like inconsequential changes in my habits; changes that added up to a whole lot of extra calories.

For instance, giving up coffee (since for me it doesn't seem to go down without 4 ounces of half and half) and exchanging my morning glass of orange juice for water. No second helpings at dinner time, and sometimes a bowl of low-fat frozen yogurt ( I like Haagen-Dazs) for dessert if I was still feeling hungry. For snacking, I'd grab a handful of almonds or plain, stove-topped popcorn instead of cookies and chips. And I became a whole-grain fiend -- T and the kids would erupt in a chorus of groans whenever I pulled out the whole-wheat burger buns.

The positive result was that a little more than 6 months later, I found myself free of those pesky 35 pounds of "baby weight".

So that was a few years ago, and the changes became habits that stuck with me; slowly my kids have come around to eat that icky brown wheat bread without complaint and (usually) won't break down in tears if I make lentils for dinner. My daughter A completely surprised me the other night by helping herself to seconds of this recipe, which I served with brown rice and some leftover roasted chicken.

Now L, my sister-in-law, who lost more than 60 pounds last year, has developed a craving for lots more grains in her cooking. So what could be bad about that? I plan to do more exploring in the name of "good for you" eating, as long as it stays real and delicious.

Provencal Lentils with Spinach

Makes 4 servings
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 small onion, finely diced
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup small dark green Le Puy lentils (I buy them in bulk at Whole Foods and Dierberg's)
1 bay leaf
2 3/4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 box frozen spinach, thawed as directed on package
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts


Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and salt; cook until softened, stirring occasionally Add the lentils and bay leaf to the pan, stirring until lentils are coated with oil.

Pour in the broth and bring to a boil; lower heat to a simmer and cook, covered, until liquid is nearly absorbed, about 30 minutes. Stir in the garlic and spinach, breaking the spinach up with a spoon; cover and continue cooking 5 – 10 more minutes.

Remove from the heat; add thyme, mustard, vinegar and pepper to taste. Taste and add more salt if needed; sprinkle with pine nuts. Find the bay leaf and remove it before serving.
Serve with brown basmati or jasmine rice.




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Olive Oil-Poached Shrimp with Chickpeas and Feta

Fresh and Wild

"Fish are the only carnivores consumed in any quantity by people."

That quote is from Barry Estabrook's story about shrimp in the March issue of Gourmet, and I've been thinking about it.

Although, thinking is not my excuse for taking a week off from this blog; no, that was due to my sudden inclination to repaint my kitchen walls (Silver Sage by Restoration Hardware, if you're curious), which required me to unplug my computer and then led to all sorts of reorganizing and vacuuming of certain spaces that haven't been touched by high-quality Miele suction since we moved in.

I don't know why the idea that fish possess the bloodthirsty predatory nature of creatures like tigers, wolves and Giant Water Bugs is so interesting to me. Maybe it's that fish are also one of the few truly wild foods that we eat in quantity.

Really, not including fresh game, the list of wild foods eaten on an average day in our culture is pretty short: Honey (which almost doesn't count because it's cultivated by beekeepers) Nuts - like these wild Missouri pecans. Real wild rice. Morels, ramps and fiddlehead ferns. And if you really swing with Euell Gibbons, dandelions from the back yard.

I was glad to read Estabrook's piece, because he addresses a nit-picky problem I've had lately with shrimp, which is that they have a tendency to taste like scum from a big muddy pond. That's because, he says, the millions of pounds of shrimp we eat each year are farm-raised in large "murky" pools somewhere in Asia or Ecuador. And, those shrimp have probably been frozen and refrozen multiple times by the time we grab a bag in the grocery store, which is why every once in a while you'll get a shrimp with the texture of a cotton ball.

What we really want to be eating is fresh, wild American shrimp. I tracked some down at a gem of a local seafood shop, Bob's. I hadn't been there in a long while and apparently I've been missing out on some fine, fat Gulf shrimp beauties. Although I'm sure they'd seen some freezer time, they smelled sweet and fresh. I poached them in olive oil in this Mark Bittman-inspired recipe:

Olive Oil Poached Shrimp with Smoked Paprika, Chickpeas and Feta
Makes about 4 servings

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil (use the good stuff for this)
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
2 pounds Gulf shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/3 cup oven dried tomatoes, sliced
1 can chickpeas, drained
A few handfuls baby arugula or spinach
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese


Combine the oil and garlic in a 10-inch skillet. Turn the heat to medium and cook until garlic begins to sizzle. Add the cumin and paprika and stir. Turn the heat up and add the shrimp, seasoning to taste with salt and pepper.

Cook until the shrimp turn pink. Stir in the tomatoes, chickpeas, arugula or spinach, and top with feta.
Serve over couscous.

Copyright (c) 2007 FamilyStyle Food

Cashew Chicken with Roasted Spiced Chickpeas

Gathering the Garbanzos

Last week, I noticed a food-blogging phenomenon that I don’t have a name for. It’s probably been described in Malcolm Gladwell’s book about social trends, The Tipping Point, but I can’t recall what term he has for it. It’s that thing where one day, it seems you see the same recipe, idea, color or low-rise jean style right in front of you, everywhere you look.

Since I can’t enlighten you further, I’ll name this particular incidence the Convergence of Chickpeas:

1. Alanna at A Veggie Venture writes about an easy garbanzo supper.
2. Lydia at The Perfect Pantry displays an essential pantry staple.
3. Lisa at Champaign Taste made a beautiful Italian-style soup.
4. Molly at Orangette describes a loving lunch gift.

Because chickpeas are one of my personal “soul” foods, I have a special place for them in my foodie heart.

I love that you can buy them in a can, drain and eat as they are or embellish them in any number of tasty exotic ways. Also, that they can inspire a whole meal, and the simpler the better. I love boldly spiced dishes like this quick cashew chicken.

It’s another convergence of sorts - Bangkok meets Bangalore.

Cashew Chicken with Roasted Spiced Chickpeas
for 4 servings

1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas, drained
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into 1-inch pieces
2 shallots, thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons Asian fish sauce
2 cups baby spinach leaves
1/2 cup roasted, salted cashews, chopped
3 cups cooked rice

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Toss the chickpeas on a baking sheet with 1 tablespoon of the oil, salt, curry powder, cumin and cayenne. Roast for 25 minutes.

Heat a non-stick wok or large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons oil until smoking. Toss in the chicken and cook, stirring, until surfaces are seared, but interior is still pink. Stir in the shallots and cook until softened, 1-2 minutes.

Add the sugar, soy sauce, and fish sauce to the chicken and stir. Cook a few more minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.

Stir in the chickpeas, spinach and cashews. Serve in bowls with hot cooked rice.

Copyright (c) 2007 FamilyStyle Food