Coming home feeling slightly high from today’s aerial hoop lesson, where I actually got upside down and stable when working on my straddle, and let go securely in jade split. I had good feeling and a good momentum so grabbed a light snack and then set to cooking some lunches for the upcoming week. I had no clue what I was doing or where it was going to end up but just went with the flow. The result being this pasta chickpea deliciousness. Fresh, creamy, gooey, yum.
I started off with taking out the pan, some margarine and an onion. Whatever it was going to be, that’s a staple start, sweat some onion right? I saw my minimixer and decided that I was going to be a little bit lazy and use it instead of a knife. So i chopped it very roughly added it in and blended until it was good enough and poured it out into the pan which I turned on. I then pulled out celery and carrots and did the same to them. A really good base for lots of things which I often use when I follow a recipe that relies on tomatoes for that base round flavor since I can’t use tomatoes. Since I had the mixer out I took out a lump of ginger and a couple of cloves of garlic and blitzed those too before adding them in. Salt, pepper and some crushed fennel seeds.
Then I let them sweat and combine and have a moment of just taking in how good it smelled. The ginger, the garlic, the carrots. I’ve been on a carrot binge lately, it’s like I’d forgotten how good they are and now I can’t get enough. So I was faced with not wanting to alter it too much because it was already so good, but also not just having warm carrot and celery as a meal.
I looked in my freezer and felt no good options jumping out at me, and then went to the cupboard and figured chickpeas would work. So I drained and rinsed a carton, obviously saving the aquafaba for a later project, and added them in. Whilst letting that fry off I put some pasta on a boil and considered how to make the more gooey, because reheating it in the microwave at work at this stage would leave me with a sad dry mess.
I had a box of silken tofu open in the fridge so I plopped that in with some soymilk, breaking it up and stirring it to a creamy sauce. At the very last minute I splashed some lemon juice in the pan and then divided it and the pasta into lunchboxes for the weak and bowl for today. It turned out better than I hoped, it was no lasagna or spaghetti sauce or whatever else I considered at every stage of cooking until the very end, but it was exactly what I wanted and needed. Fresh, comfy and just yum.
Chickpeas are a staple at home, but it didn’t use to be. I’ve not only befriended them since I turned vegan, as I have with so many other things I’d decided wasn’t for me, but I’ve actually come to really like them. They are versatile, not bland or weird, you can turn them into anything and they are also really good as is.
I’m now cuddled up in bed with a large cup of cocoa drowning in an oversized hoodie feeling really good about me myself and I and the upcoming week. I may be bruised, blistered and have yet another torn callus in my hand, but I’m strong and I’m getting better every week.
’til next time, do that thing that makes you tick and proud of you. It really does brighten the day.
GardenBookCook 