Or call it MultiSupper.
Or call it Chickpea Salad, my dudez.
Over the past few years, I have cooked up some very plain thing to serve as a meal centerpiece for myself, so I don't have to come home from work and cook from scratch every night, but so I am also not committed to eating potato soup for the rest of the week. This Sunday's "Very Plain Thing" was a mess of chickpeas, carrots, salad potatoes, and sauteed mushrooms. When I was finished cooking it all, I had about 2.5 quart jars of the mix, plus about 2, maybe 2.5 cups of cooking liquid.
So the first supper was comprised of the chickpea-veggie mix, in a sauce, and over basmati rice. I did not get a picture of it, alas, because we just ate it too quickly. Michael took one bite and said, "Did you write this down?"
Always a sure sign of a winner.
Not the Very Plain Thing, mind you. The sauce.
Thus was born the need for a name. See, sometimes things Mike likes and wants to be sure I write down are things that may never happen again, because lame ass reasons. However, this one he will ask for again, because he has been discussing how he applied the leftovers of this dish to other dishes and how those leftovers improved whatever the heck it was he was adding them to.
Dried chickpeas cooked in salted water, sauteed mushrooms, rice, and steamed tiny potatoes and carrot chunks are not things I am going to forget how to make any time soon. So the sauce is the imperative part, and the part that must be written down.
Moroccan Spiced Sauce
To leftover cooking liquid, add chicken base (I usually use the better than bullion type), milk, nootch, a little olive oil, and plain yogurt. Cook this smooth, then add at least a teaspoon of Moroccan Memories spice blend, more if you like (we like more). Let this simmer. When the flavors have blended, thicken with flour. If needed, add more spice blend (since thickeners often reduce the flavor of the sauce) and let it simmer a bit longer, stirring all the while. This sauce really benefits from a little time for the flavors to really cook together.
I was making it up as I went along, cooking to taste, so I can't give precise amounts. It was cooking liquid from cooking dried garbanzo beans, carrots, and potatoes, cooked in my cast iron skillet, the lovely skillet that had sauteed the mushrooms and so had a little ghost of flavor from that, too. I used the nootch to give it a little more umami, but you really have to be careful with the nootch, it initially overpowered the veggie water and chicken stock blend.
Because I started with about 2.5 cups of cooking liquid, I ended up with about 3.5 cups of sauce. I poured them over 1.5 quarts of the chickpea-veggie mix, so there was plenty of sauce for the rice, too.
I had intended to make veggie burgers with the remaining quart of garbanzo-veggie blend, but I was just too tired to go to that effort. So I made a chickpea salad sandwich.
A Chickpea Salad
Mash about 1.5 cups of cooked chickpea-veggie mix. Add 2-3 spoonfuls of your preferred type of mayo-type spread. Mix. Add 1-3 splashes of liquid smoke (I used the hickory liquid smoke). Mix. Add 1/4 teaspoon (or more to taste) of Turkish Delight. Even eaten right away, it's nice. A little time for the flavors to meld merely makes a different kind of tasty.
I ate it on rye bread, which was actually a little too strong for the dressing, so I felt I had to make another small batch for my lunch tomorrow, so's I can test it out as a sandwich on some cracked wheat bread. Oh, darn, gotta eat this again. Just, darn.
