This battered chickpea recipe happened completely by accident.
Accidents don’t usually happen in my kitchen, unless we’re talking about the bad kind. Like when my processor exploded while making this pesto…
Or when the blender decided to erupt, exploding Green Monster lava all over the kitchen. Or those (many) times when I plugged in the electric mixer to discover it’s already turned on, shooting batter all over the place, as I scream for help.
This processor is the second Kitchenaid 14-cup processor that I’ve murdered, slowly and painfully over time. Actually, I broke the first one trying to process dates on the first try. It takes a real skill to break a processor on the first go around!
I’ve become so accustomed to this wonky processor, I don’t even bat an eyelash when it does weird things like ooze liquids. Eric walked into the kitchen the other day, looking with horror at the processor explosion. I tried to explain to him that this was “normal” and now he thinks I’m the crazy one.
Why do I get the feeling that I’m getting a food processor for Valentine’s Day?
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Chickpea Basil Pesto
Yield
3/4 cup
Prep time
Cook time
0 minutes
Total time
If your food processor isn’t broken, it’s all downhill from here. Use this flavourful, lightened-up pesto on sandwiches, fried chickpeas, wraps, tofu, crackers, and more
Ingredients
- 2 garlic cloves
- 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 4 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 1 cup packed fresh basil, stems removed (30 grams)
- 1/2 cup cooked chickpeas
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt, or to taste
Directions
- With the food processor running, drop in the peeled garlic cloves through the top opening until minced.
- Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add in the oil, lemon juice, and basil. Process until smooth, stopping to scrape down the bowl as needed.
- Add in the chickpeas and optional nutritional yeast. Process again until smooth. Add salt to taste and process. You can add a bit more oil or water to achieve your desired consistency. Scoop into a jar or air-tight container. Will keep in the fridge for 1 week or so.
After making the pesto, I had some leftover chickpeas to use up, so I decided to lightly fry them in the skillet, adding seasonings as I went.
This was my first time making fried chickpeas…and oh my lanta they are good!!
I never thought I’d see the day when Eric would pound back chickpeas. It was funny at first until he ate all of them on me…
Featuring all new, protein-packed salads, hearty toppers, flavour boosters, and dressings you'll want to drink, my new cookbook will transform the way you think about salads. Oh, and be sure to flip to the back for a surprise dessert chapter!
"Battered" Fried Chickpeas
Yield
1.5 cups
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Bored of plain chickpeas? The nutritional yeast and seasonings give the chickpeas a thin coating and a ton of flavour, perfect for popping into your mouth. Keep in mind that the chickpeas don’t get crispy, but they do firm up a bit. I used garlic powder instead of fresh garlic in this recipe because the powder gives it more of a coating, like flour would. Add them to a salad, mix them up with chickpea pesto in a wrap, or just eat them plain. Note: You can also scale down the recipe depending on how many chickpeas you have to use up.
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp oil
- 1 (15-oz) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 2-2.5 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 1/4 tsp Herbamare (or use kosher salt)
- freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- Pinch of cayenne pepper, optional
Directions
- Heat 1 tbsp oil in a medium-sized skillet over medium heat.
- Meanwhile, drain and rinse the chickpeas. When the skillet has pre-heated (chickpeas should sizzle on it), carefully add the drained chickpeas to the skillet. Be very careful as they will sizzle and crackle in the oil and it may splash you.
- Fry the chickpeas, stirring every 20 seconds or so, over medium heat. After a few minutes, stir in the rest of the ingredients to taste. The chickpeas will have a thin coating on them. Fry for about 5-6 more minutes, stirring frequently and making sure they don’t burn. If they are starting to burn, reduce heat. They should be golden and lightly charred in some parts.
Tip:
Enjoyed with the chickpea basil pesto, they did not last long!
Tuesday’s Post
Thank you for your kind words about the news (and patience for the blog crashing most of Tuesday morning). We now have over 3,000 of you signed up for the newsletter! I’ve started working on the first questionnaire and hope to have the first newsletter out in the next couple weeks. I just need to figure out how this beast works…
Bloggie Awards
The 2012 Bloggies are going down right now until Feb 19th, with bloggers nominated in all kinds of categories. Oh She Glows is nominated in the “Health or Wellness” blog category (along with many of my fav bloggers, like Caitlin and Leo). If you’d like to check out the nominees and vote for your favs in each category, click here. There are a ton of fun categories (and blogs) to check out.
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Today, I’d love to make myself feel better by reading about your kitchen appliance disasters. Tell me all about it…I know I’m not alone!
Also, do you have a food processor that you’re in love with? I’d love to hear about the brand/model you recommend (I get asked this a lot too, so I know many readers would love to read your input.)
Not once, not twice, but THREE times my mom used her vitamix tamper without putting the lid on!
She buys them 2 at a time now.
oops this comment posted below for some reason. Anyways, I said –>Ouch!! I’ve heard that happening so many times, I’m actually surprised it hasn’t happened to me before..
I love when a so-called disaster turns into something fabulous. In this case=SUCCESS!
I will for sure try these. I love this treat and that fact that you jazzed it up with your sauce. Amazing. Healthy too! Yes.
I usually curry up my chickpeas but I love the thought of pesto. :)
I have one of those ceramic, solid surface range tops. You know the kind where you have to be careful when you’re done using it because the burner area is still hot but doesn’t look any different than the rest? Well, let’s just say the bottom of my blender learned that one the hard way. The base is half melted but still seems to work alright!
ohhh that would be heartbreaking! I’ve melted many plastic baggies (from bulk food stuff) on my stovetop…and pots for that matter.
I have a 9 cup Cuisinart food processor and so far I am very happy with it.
Stick with a cuisinart it’s a classic, not the fancy ones, just the food processor. It’s almost as good as my vitamix blender. I’ve had mine for 10 yrs. no problems.
I’ve had no problems with appliances, although this morning my hair dryer blew and I burn my pots all the time….it must be my stove. :)
I always blame my stove for everything!
hows this for kitchen disaster: i moved in with my long term boyfriend for this past summer. he’s working on his masters in environmental engineering, and still lives in his fraternity house since its so much cheaper than an apartment anywhere else, plus its a 3 story mansion built in the 1800’s with more “character” than you can imagine. I love to cook, but I ESPECIALLY love to bake. the problem? the oven in his house is probably 60 years old.. to light it, you have to remove the bottom pan and light the pilot light by turning the gas all the way up, lighting a piece of paper using one of the stove burners, and reaching your arm to the back of the oven while working your magic with a sparker button which lights the pilot light… sounds fun right? thats just the beginning. the thermistor on the oven is broken, so it only has one setting: on, which is about 600 degrees. so you have to crack the oven door with a spatula and watch a thermometer inside to get the temperature right, and things tend to burn on the bottom and not cook on the top. so frustrating!! Now that we have a different place with a real oven I could not appreciate it more!!!!
And he bought me an Oster 10 Cup Food Processor for my birthday and I absolutely love it, I’ve never had any problems with it and it also makes grating carrots and zucchini, or slicing veggies for stir fry a breeze!
My food processor died today because I tried to make A LOT of almond butter at once. It was just too much for the poor thing and now my kitchen smells bad because of the smoke… :(.
A really nice food processor is Thermomix, though maybe only available in Europe? And my Bosch processor is really nice as well. I hope it`s not completely dead…
Well, this is surely a pleasant kitchen mistake!! Looks delicious!!!
While not an appliance disaster per say, it was an epic mess. My mom baked an apple pie and when it was done in the oven put it one the back burner to cool. I guess the oven was still cooling and the pie got too hot (it was sitting on the back burner above the vent that helps the oven cool) and the apple pie EXPLODED all over the kitchen. Hot apple pie filling + pastry + broken glass everywhere! Lesson: beware of aging pyrex dishes.
I attempted my first time to make homemade almond butter in my processor, after about 10 mins on and off it finally got really hot and smoked a little, not good. What is funny is I still use this same processor and it works just fine, must have overloaded the poor thing.
Oooh, yum. Never thought of battering chickpeas but they look awesome. Gotta try that some time.
If it makes you feel any better, I once used a hand mixer until it literally went up in smoke. It made a popping noise and then spewed smoke out the little vents in the sides. I still don’t really know how it happened. I should really invest in a better quality mixer, haha.
I made date squares for the first time the other day, and thought I must be doing it wrong because the dates were so hard to process! I used the magic bullet… which ended up taking forever because I could only do a couple of dates at a time, but it worked really well. I also use it on soups, because my blender no longer works. If you’re doing small batches, the magic bullet is great.
I tried to cook beets in the microwave once and horribly failed. =( They started on fire and I ended up destroying the microwave..and the homegrown beets!! I try to avoid microwave cooking by all means now.
Looks delicious! As for a food processor… I don’t have one. I use my Vitamix for EVERYTHING. If it’s something really small I use the cup attachment on my immersion blender (or just chop by hand). I have a really small kitchen and the less appliances the better!
I can’t wait to try out both of these recipes! I recently attempted to lighten up my pesto recipe and it didn’t have much flavor, so I’m excited to try yours. I never would have thought of adding chickpeas!
When I was younger, maybe around 14 or so, my younger sister and I were home by ourselves and we had something heating up in the oven. Next thing I knew, there was a flame in the oven! It was an electric oven and part of the coil had caught on fire. Thinking I was being brave and responsible, I grabbed the fire extinguisher from the garage and sprayed the oven until the flame went out. However, I had NO idea what a mess a fire extinguisher makes. And whenever I think about it I can still taste the disgusting flavor I had in my mouth from breathing in those icky particles – so gross. To top it all off, my mom was mad at me for making such a mess! Not my finest hour.
I LOVE my food processor and use it all the time. I have a Cuisinart Pro Custom 11 Food Processor (DLC-8S Series). My mom has had her Cuisinart food processor since she and my dad got married 30 years ago, so I think they’re pretty reliable!
Good gracious, woman! It is like we are on the same level. I have all these chickpeas to use up and I had no idea what to do with them, since we are hummus’d out!
While I have never busted a food processor (let us know what brand everyone is recommending, I need a new one!), I go through blenders like they are not an expensive appliance! I burnt out the motor on two Breville’s because of my heavy on the beans and greens smoothies! I should just shell out the dough (ha ha, no pun intended!) on a VitaMix, I just cannot convinve my husband.
I once set my toaster oven on fire when I tried to make grilled cheese in it and the cheese ended up oozing out onto the elements. Whoops! :P
Ha-ha I have done the exact thing!
So making this! I just need to get some fresh basil stat!
I ran out of nooch last night making juice pulp crackers NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I have to make these, oh they look so yummy and I’ve been on a huge salad kick lately so I bet they would be a great addition.
3000! Can you believe it. You are awesome, the community on your blog is awesome and I’m so happy for you.
I’ve always enjoyed chickpeas. Fried chickpeas. Baked chickpeas. Curried chickpeas… you get the idea. But lately I’ve been really appreciating the intense and wonderful flavor of fresh basil.
This would be perfect on top of a salad. Couldn’t see it lasting too long though.