What was a healthy polenta fetish in the 90’s, are protein rich and flavorful chickpeas to the 20’s. Not kidding. I’m totally hooked and have worked chickpeas/garbanzos into our daily diet. And I’m talking about the fresh uncooked uncanned kind. So onward.
Cooked Fresh Chickpeas Ingredients
Serves: 4 Adults
Overnight Soak
Cook time: 2 ½ hours
- 2 cups uncooked chickpeas
- 8 cups water for soak
- 1 onion chopped
- 1 stalk celery with leaves, chopped
- 1 tbsp salt
Cooked Fresh Chickpeas Recipe
- Cover chickpeas in large pot with 8 cups water
- Soak chickpeas overnight
- Pour off soak water and rinse well
- Add onion, celery and salt
- Cover with fresh 8 cups water
- Bring to boil, then simmer covered for 2 ½ hours
Clio’s Chickpea Bowl Ingredients
- 1 cup cooked chickpeas
- 2 leaves of kale
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- ½ tbsp fresh lemon zest
- Sprinkle of garlic salt
Clio’s Chickpea Bowl Recipe
- Pour 1 cup of the cooked chickpeas in a soup bowl
- Chop and massage the kale with your fingers and a little olive oil
- Add to bowl, and sprinkle a little olive oil
- Garnish with lemon zest and garlic salt
First of all buy uncooked fresh chickpeas. Rick found online, www.palousebrand.com chickpeas from Palouse Washington. For $15.00 he was able to buy a five pound gunny sack full. We bought ours in October and have enough for 2 more pots of the stuff. Not bad, when you consider a little tub of hummus runs around $5-6 bucks. I’ve gotten in the habit of every two weeks soaking the two cups needed, and we’ll have one dinner and three lunches + a delectable bowl of hummus to nosh on during the week. Also, a suggestion, using the hummus as salad dressing; fab! I’ll leave you with my hummus recipe. And I’ll introduce you to the Mader Family who are the hardworking farmers/processors bringing chickpeas to market. First the hummus.
Clio’s Hummus Ingredients
Serves: 8 Adults (not counting the soak/cook time)
Prep: 15 minutes
- 1 ½ cups chickpeas (cooked)
- ¼ cup + 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- ¼ cup well-stirred tahini sauce
- 1 small garlic clove, minced
- 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, plus a little drizzle for serving
- ½ tsp ground cumin
- Salt to taste
- 2-3 tbsp water
- Dash paprika
Clio’s Hummus Recipe
- In a bowl of a food processor or blender, combine the tahini and lemon juice and process for 1 minute, scrape sides and bottom of bowl then process 30 seconds more. This extra step helps “whip” or “cream” the tahini, making the hummus smooth and creamy.
- Add the olive oil, minced garlic, cumin and ½ tsp of salt.
- Add the drained chickpeas to the processor and process for 1 minute.
- Scrape sides and bottom of bowl, and process until thick and quite smooth; 1-2 minutes.
- Most likely the hummus will be too thick or have bits of chickpea. To fix this add the 2-3 Tbsp water until you reach a perfect consistency.
- Taste for salt and adjust as needed.
- Serve hummus with a drizzle of olive oil, and a dash of paprika.
- Store homemade (love that word) hummus in an airtight container and refrigerate up to one week.
So back to the Mader Family and why I mention them. “Five generations ago the Mader Family started farming. Our farm operations span across the southeast part of Washington State and are headquartered in Pullman Washington. In 2001 we acted on an opportunity to add a cleaning facility to our operation. Palouse Trading was designed for quality instead of quantity. We take raw food products and clean them into food grade edible products, which our customers find appealing because of the nutritional and aesthetic values.”
(This is the part that I love knowing)
“The farm operation has been using the latest sustainable agricultural practices. We have been using Direct Seeding and No-Till practices since 1982. These changes have greatly reduced soil erosion, have increased soil health and helped us control our cost..”
Want to know where your Field Traced Certified Non-GMO food comes from?
“There aren’t many companies, if any, that can identify where and when your food was grown and harvested. Palouse Brand Field Trace’s your food. Each single commodity bag that leaves our facility has a lot code you can use to search for the field that we grew it in- in addition you will receive through that search details on your bag of food.”
And so why does any of that mean a hill of chickpeas to us? I can’t help but think with the rising rates of cancer, specifically prostate cancer, there has to be a connection between what chemicals were being used on crops, especially in the 50’s-60’s where grain crops were sprayed with herbicides and pesticides in order to get more production.
38,000 men will die this year of prostate cancer. The average age of diagnosis of this dreaded disease is 66 years old. This age group ate a ton of bread and cereal during the years 1950-1960s; six-hundred million pounds of pesticides and herbicides were used on grain crops. Between 1945 to 1972 increased tenfold.
Back to the Maders and other sources of the food that make up our diet. It’s comforting to know that I can look up the code included with our cute little gunny sack and find out where exactly, and what exactly was used to grow our chickpeas. Pure power.
“Agriculture is the most healthful, most useful, and most noble employment of man.” -George Washington
Chickpea nutritional facts: According to the World Healthiest Foods, garbanzo/chickpeas have many health benefits. Ranging from digestive tract support, antioxidants, decreased cardiovascular risks, better regulation of blood sugar and increased satiety. (I can attest to that, after eating my little bowl of chickpeas for lunch, I can go 4 hours and not think about food, that’s huge) ¼ cup serving provides 4 grams of protein, 3 grams of fiber, and as well as 6.5% of your daily intake of iron. Just to name a few…
And again, it’s so rewarding to make my own. Just knowing it hasn’t been sitting on a shelf in a plastic tub at the grocery store, but with planning the overnight soak, carefully rinsing, chopping the veggies especially those celery leaves and whipping it all together somehow makes me feel good on so many levels.
Ciao for now 🙂
