Cooking Now...Angela Liddon's Roasted Spiced Chickpeas.

Today as I wait for the workers to come and put in my new heating and air-conditioning system I'm feeling like I want to try something new in the kitchen. So today, I am reviewing Angela Liddon's Roasted Spiced Chickpeas. I am starting off by draining my chickpeas and rinsing them in a colander. I did this to get rid of any excess sodium that was on them because these were low-sodium chickpeas not "no salt added " chickpeas.

While they are draining I put the half teaspoon of olive oil in the bottom of my mixing bowl. Now I am draining the chickpeas with paper towels just as, Angela has suggested.  Per instructions, I just put my chickpeas in my bowl and tossed them so that they are covered with the olive oil. Now I am supposed to put the spices on. I use this handy dandy little sauce cup for many things in my kitchen, but one thing I like to do with it is to put all my spices for a recipe in it and mix them up together in the sauce cup first before I put them on whatever the dishes that I make it. I do this rather than just sprinkling on the him spices separately because I think it blends the flavors more and make sure that all the flavors are more evenly spread out. I don't know if this is scientifically the best thing to do but it's what I do and I feel it works well with almost every recipe.

Awesome Sauce Cup

Mixed chickpeas with spices

Ready to go into the oven

Now the chickpeas are in the oven cooking. I am dubious about these chickpeas because I have never try tried a chickpea recipe that I like as far as a "snacking chickpeas." I love hummus. And I love chickpeas in salads. And I even love chick peas mashed in a wrap. But roasted chickpeas have never been my thing. I have never had a recipe that turned out. One of the problems, I think, is always cooking them the appropriate amount of time. I never know how long is long enough or too long. Right now, my chickpeas are roasting and they should be 20 minutes into it very soon.  Angela suggests in her recipe at least 20 minutes. She said because she likes them crispy so she cooks hers a full 40 minutes. I think I'm going to go in between both those times and maybe do 30 minutes.

 I am hearing a slight popping. Could the chickpeas be exploding? I better check.... No exploding chickpeas, bu they are getting a nice color of brown though. Angela suggests using these spiced chickpeas on her Thai Cucumber Salad (which I didn't think of making ahead of time so I'm not going to because I don't have all the ingredients). However, she also said you can use these chickpeas as a snack, so that is what I'm doing.  If I like them and they turn out, I may save them for dinner since we're having a big salad for dinner.  More popping... turns out they are exploding. My timer says three minutes left, so I'm going to let them go for three more minutes. Or maybe I should take them out now...hmmm,  don't know.

Finished product

Okay, so I let the timer expire and did cook them a full 30 minutes. Let me just say that these little balls taste like seasoned french fries,  somewhere between the frozen  lightly seasoned fries from O-reida and the more seasoned fries you would get at a restaurant of fast food place. I put 1/8 tsp of ketchup in one of my handy dandy little sauce cups and mixed in 2 Tbsp of chickpeas and they were good that way too. Now, I don't need the extra sugar or calorie,s but it might be a way for me to get the kids to like them. We'll see.  

I am pleasantly surprised.. I will make them again for sure. I wish they were saltier, but I never cook with salt for health reasons (I just love the stuff) so I will never add anymore. Love them! Angela is right though, that they do lose their crispiness as they sit. I wonder why. It doesn't matter, they're still delicious.