I’m in the middle of moving. Boxes are everywhere. My Kitchen Aid is packed away. My good knives are covered in protective wrap. And I’ve been trying to use up all the food in my pantry without buying new stuff. All this to say, I haven’t been cooking up anything new and exciting.
Whenever I clean out my pantry, I always seem to have an unused cans of food. They’re staples that I buy and sometimes they sit there forever. But you never know when you’re going to need a can of black beans, right? When you’re moving, one can of frijoles negros is always left. When I was in college, my friends and I used to always joke about that lonely leftover can of frijoles negros. One of my friends (you know who you are) even ate frijoles negros for dinner for a week before moving out of her college dorm.
Besides finding the traditional can of frijoles negros in my pantry, I also found several cans of chickpeas. They’re remnants from when I became obsessed with chickpeas earlier in the summer. I fried them, I baked them, I put them in salads. Unlike the useless can of frijoles negros, I was thrilled to find a few cans of chickpeas for my last meals in my current apartment. Why? Well, a few months ago I discovered a new way to use chickpeas and I haven’t been able to get enough of the concoction since. I’ve been eating it alone, on bread, in pitas, for lunch, for dinner, etc. all summer.
The pictures above are from earlier this summer when I ate the chickpea salad on a delicious $1 loaf of olive bread from the farmer’s market. Mmmm. It was delicious. So were the fresh tomatoes, basil and mozzarella. And this chickpea salad is delicious, too. I can’t get enough of it.
Chickpea Salad
1 can of chickpeas or garbanzo beans or whatever you call them
1/2 red onion, diced finely
1/2 can of olives, chopped roughly
Fresh parsley
Lemon juice
Olive oil
Rinse chickpeas and mash them slightly (with a fork); mix chickpeas with about a tablespoon of olive oil and juice from a small lemon; add parsley, olives and onion and mix together. Eat on toasted bread (with cheese!), alone, in a pita…and enjoy! (I’ll be eating mine with a plastic fork out of a tupperware…)
[...] are one of my favorite foods. They’re so versatile in salads (like this one) or hummus or just plain. I discovered a new way to enjoy chickpeas while dining at a restaurant [...]
[...] now you’re probably aware that I have a thing for chickpeas. I like them fried and in salads and now I have a new way to love them…in [...]