Warming Chickpea Stew

I could write paragraphs & paragraphs about the rotten weather, how it’s meant to be warmer in June & give you masses of memories about sunkissed summer days and BBQ’s.

Instead today it’s a straight recipe for a store cupboard warming stew.  It’s vegetarian (if you prefer), cheap and quick to make particularly if the weather is so bad you don’t want to be dragging yourself from your home to get to the shops.  When I made the stew this week I used 1 batch of my Special Sauce (500ml) from the freezer to get some hidden veg into the kids and on chopping.  Feel free to add vegetables if you like but if you want a smoother sauce just substitute my sauce for a tin of chopped tomatoes.

I made this stew on the day we came home from a short stay away.  This meant that we had no fresh food in the house.  The lovely folks at Goodalls Ireland had given me some of their new paste range to try out.  For the stew you see here I used 1 tablespoon each of both the shallot & garlic pastes instead of fresh onion and garlic.

Ingredients

• 1 tin of cooked chickpeas
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• 500ml of Special Sauce (or another tin of tomatoes if you have none in the freezer)
• 400ml of water
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 small onion or shallot
• 1 tin of sweetcorn
• 200g of spaghetti or any other dried pasta is fine too
•  1 tablespoon of sunflower oil
• 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika

Equipment

• 1 small chopping board
• 1 sharp knife
• 1 tin opener if your cans don’t have a ring pull
• 1 extra-large pot with a lid
• 1 large wooden spoon

Method

1. Put your pot on a medium heat.
2. Open all your tins and drain the chickpeas & sweetcorn.
3. Chop the onion and garlic finely.
4. Place the sunflower oil in the pot and allow to come to heat then add the onion and garlic.
5. Stir for 5 minutes then add the smoked paprika, stir for another minute.
6. Add the drained chickpeas and stir around so that they are coated in the onions, garlic & paprika.
7. Now add your tomatoes and/or special sauce along with the water.
8. Stir well then break up the pasta into small pieces straight into the pot.
9. Bring to a simmer then cover and cook for 15 minutes.
10. Now add the sweetcorn (to keep it crunchy) and serve.
11. If you fancy a more meaty version add some lardons or pieces of rasher at the very start when cooking the onion and garlic.