Chickpea Soup

This week may just be my favourite to date… except, maybe, for the Tofu Alfredo, which is still blowing my mind that it is made from tofu, or the BBQ Chicken and Kale Pizza.  Have I told you about my deep, undying love for pizza? I made a song about it the other day (much to the dismay of my coworkers). It’s goes a little something like this, “Nothing compares, nothing compares… to pizza.” Think Sinéad O’Connor. Yeah… I was singing that allll day. Anyways, back to today’s recipe. It’s almost, if not just as good as my BBQ Chicken and Kale Pizza recipe.

I have recently discovered chickpeas (I know I’m a little late to the game) and they are pretty spectacular. I love them as a snack, and make Actifry Chickpeas on the regular but I wanted to experiment a little more. I went to a Moroccan restaurant last summer and had a chickpea soup in a tomato base so that was what I was trying to duplicate here. I didn’t have a lot of Moroccan spices on hand (it wouldn’t be a Kitchen Raid if I had everything I wanted) so I winged it and it came out de-freaking-licious. You should go make this recipe right now, it’s that good.

Ingredients

• 1 19 0z can of chickpeas.  I hear that you can’t get canned chickpeas in some places and that they only come dried. If this is the case where you are then you can soak the chickpeas in cold water for 12 hours and then add them to boiling water. Decrease the temperature to a simmer and leave them this way for one hour. That’s all there is to it.
• 1 24 oz can crushed tomatoes
• 1 19 oz can diced tomatoes
• 2 medium sized white onions, finely diced (use a food processor if you have one)
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of garlic
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 1 tablespoon mild curry paste
• 1 tablespoon minced ginger
• 1 tablespoon honey

Directions

1. Heat a large pot over medium heat and add oil, garlic and onions. Sauté for 10-15 minutes or until the onions are soft and have started to brown.
2. Add chickpeas and continue to sauté for another 5-10 minutes.
3. Add everything else and bring to a boil. Decrease heat and let your soup simmer for 30- 40 minutes so all your flavours can be happily married.
4. Eat.

Notes

I used 1 tablespoon of honey and it did have a distinctly sweet flavour, which I really liked. If you would like it spicier instead of sweet, decrease the amount of honey to 1 teaspoon (you still want some to cut the acidity of all those tomatoes) and you can add cayenne pepper and/or red chilli flakes.

Not too tricky and so so so delicious! I was so pleased with this recipe, especially for it being off the cuff. Very Wednesday Night Kitchen Raid style. Give it a whirl and let me know what you think.