Bittman’s Fried Chick Peas

Bloggies, if you’ve never made a recipe from my blog but want to, THIS is the recipe to make! Seriously. It’s so easy, nutritious and delicious.

I got this recipe from Mark Bitman’s blog on the New York Times. The combination of flavors really MAKES this Spanish-inspired dish.

The star of the meal was definitely this guy:

The best part of this no-antibiotic, no-added hormone, all vegetarian feeds chorizo was that it was FULLY COOKED! Woot!

I’m always so nervous about cooking for other people and making them sick, so I was glad I didn’t have to worry about that this time around. As for the taste – can you really go wrong with spicy sausage?! I think not.

Ingredients:

can of chickpeas

3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 chorizo links (diced)

12 ounces spinach (about the size of a small basketball?)

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Heat up olive oil in pan and add chick peas.

Cook until it gets brown and toasty. It’ll take about 5 minutes.

Add salt and pepper to taste. (Remember that the chorizo has a lot of spice so you really don’t have to add much)

Add chorizo to the chickpeas. I sliced my chorizo up on a bias but I recommend dicing them to be about the same size of the chick peas. It’ll be easier to eat.

Once it’s heated through, remove the chick peas and chorizo with a slotted spoon into a bowl so that you don’t get any oil in the bowl.

Using the same pan, add the spinach and cook until wilted.

Make sure the spinach is dry after washing because otherwise it’ll get soggy.

Add the chick peas and chorizo.

Serve and enjoy!

Kim brought over a Grenache (Garnacha) which complimented my Spanish dish perfectly!

I’ve said it a million times but I do love my Grenaches. Actually, I should start calling them Garnacha since that’s the actual name of the grape. The French call them Grenaches.

Mark Bitman added bread crumbs to his dish but I opted to have toasted french bread drizzled with olive oil on the side.

Here’s Kim!

This recipe is definitely one of my top five favorites, if I do say so myself. So EASY, relatively cheap (depending on what kind of chorizo you get) and delicious!

For dessert, we tried something new. I actually hadn’t had time to prepare the meal and initially told Kim we were probably going to order pizza. I felt bad at the last minute so I threw together this Bitman meal. I’d like to say that it only took about 20 – 25 minutes from start to finish.

Anyway, I had some frozen bananas so we made banana “ice cream”, which I had been seeing on blogs for quite some time. It only requires putting frozen bananas into a food processor until it becomes smooth.

I highly recommend freezing bananas when they become uber-ripe and have no plans to consume them. You don’t have to waste it and it’s great for smoothies and oatmeal.

We topped our “ice cream” with chocolate peanut butter and marshmallow fluff.

Unfortunately, the fluff and pb “frozen” and wasn’t a great topper. Taste-wise, it was great but there was too much going on for my taste. Next time, I’ll just add chocolate chips or something.

For what it is, I thought the banana ice cream (which is more like a soft-serve consistency) was pretty good! Again, I’m not a big fan of frozen desserts but for what it is, it was great.

Tags: banana soft serve, chickpeas, chorizo, garnacha, Mark Bittman, spinach