Selfish Vegan

“Good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get.”

— Confucius

Sometimes we’re looking for convenience.  And it’s just so easy to boil some pasta and throw a jar of red sauce over the top.  It’s easy to fry up some grilled “cheese” sandwiches and heat a can of soup.  Easy, staple foods never seem to be the healthy ones though, do they?  There’s nothing wrong with these things on occasion, but honestly, we can do better.

Sometimes I want to throw together a salad or a plate of pasta without poring over a verbose cookbook for forty-five minutes before I even begin cooking.  Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that when I don’t plan and prepare, we wind up eating a pound of white flour for dinner.  Including more than one token plant on our plates still doesn’t come naturally to me; I have to work at it.

This is where Husband comes in– he is the master of fast foods.  It’s like he has a mental card catalogue of easy meal boosters.  He’ll just pick a few things from his secret bag of tricks, combine them somehow, and the result is almost always a success.  One of these little gems is his Pan Roasted Chickpeas.  They’re frickin’ tasty and they sneak fiber, protein, calcium, zinc, and folate into whatever we’re eating.  Add them to whatever you want; I particularly like them on salads and in mixed-up rice and veggie creations.  Also, with chocolate.

Pan Roasted Chickpeas

• Rinse and dry a can of Garbanzo Beans
• Add just enough Olive Oil to very lightly coat a large cast iron pan
• Heat pan on medium and add Beans
• Stir to coat with Oil and season liberally with Coarse Sea Salt & Fresh Cracked Pepper
• Let sit for 5 min
• Stir
• Sit for 2-3 min
• Add optional seasonings (paprika, red pepper flakes, cayenne, etc.) and stir
• Sit for 2-3 min
• They’re done when they start to pop

Let’s never lose touch.