Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Roasted Chickpeas, found over at The Oprah Blog. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post.

Robyn’s Take:

The recipe this week was my choice, and I’ll be honest – it was only because I had a shitload of canned chickpeas in the pantry. They’ve been sitting there for YEARS, and I wanted to get rid of them. So I googled around and thought and pondered and made a batch of avocado hummus, and then I decided to ask if Nance wanted to make roasted chickpeas and she was all “Yeah, whatever”, and so that’s how I chose this week’s recipe. There are 35 million versions of this recipe, but I chose this one because it was straightforward and easy. I mean, that doesn’t mean I didn’t fuck it up, but imagine how badly it would have gone if I’d chosen one that was complicated.

Ingredients:

1 can of chickpeas/ garbanzo beans, olive oil, spices of your choice. I tasked Fred with choosing the spices we were going to use, and he chose Morton’s Hot Salt and Creole seasoning, but then put the Hot Salt back after I snapped this picture.

Open the can and rinse the chickpeas in a colander.

Dump the chickpeas onto a rimmed baking sheet lined with paper towels.

Shake the sheet so that the chickpeas roll around and get mostly dry. I also took a small piece of paper towel and ran it over the top of the chickpeas to help the drying process. Then I realized that, hey. There was still plenty of room left on that baking sheet, so I opened a second can of chickpeas and did it all over again.

Remove the paper towel. Drizzle olive oil over the top of the chickpeas.

I didn’t measure the amount of olive oil I used, and as a result I used too much and had to grab yet ANOTHER piece of paper towel to soak up some of the olive oil. You want your chickpeas to be lightly coated with olive oil, not swimming in it.

Then, because I have zero reading comprehension skills, I sprinkled the Creole seasoning over the chickpeas. I failed to take a picture of this, and I shouldn’t even tell y’all that I did it, because YOU would never know. But you’re intended to wait ’til the chickpeas are done and THEN sprinkle seasoning over them, like with popcorn. Honestly, I don’t think it makes a difference whether you do it before roasting or after.

Chickpeas, roasted:

I roasted mine for 35 minutes, took them out, let them cool a bit, then found that they were still too soft. Whereupon I stuck them back in the oven for another 10 minutes. SIGH.

Roasted chickpeas, in a bowl

What do the cats think?

Newt was all “I’ll just chew on that piece of rusted metal, lady, THANKS ANYWAY.”

Elwood said “I’m not going to eat it. You eat it.”
Kara said “Oh, HELLZ NO.”

What did the people think? They were good. I don’t know that I’m ever going to CRAVE them or anything, but for a crunchy, spicy snack on a Saturday night while watching a bad movie, they’re perfect.

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Nance’s take:

Robyn picks the strangest recipes, man. Everyone knows that I never refuse Robyn’s recipe choices because I told her way back in the day that I will not tandem cook any seafood with her. I’m starting to wonder if this is her way of paying me back…

This is the second can of chickpeas that has ever been in my house. The first can was when I decided I needed more protein and added them to my salad. Yeah, that went over well. My brain was all, “Whee, this will be a great source of protein!” but my taste buds told me to go fuck myself and eat more cheese.

I was a little weirded out by the floaties in there.

Up-close they kind of reminded me of slimy kidney stones. Can you imagine passing kidney stones that looked like this…if you were a guy? Ha! I have no idea why I just went there. And now I am sitting here wondering if I have man-hating issues deep in my brain that I should maybe deal with. Although I could just be sitting here losing my mind because it’s late and I’m tired. I’ll figure it all out tomorrow.

Shower time!

Getting ready to dump them on to the paper towel like the “recipe” said.

I just knew this was going to be a pain in the ass.

I ended up just ripping the paper towel out from under them and hand-drying the freaking things.

It’s really hard to hold a camera in one hand while pouring olive oil with the other. I probably used more than what the recipe called for.  True confession:  I did not cover the chickpeas with the oil by rolling my cookie sheet back and forth.  I did get fed up and rolled those little fuckers in the oil with my bare hands.

I need you to know that I set off the upstairs smoke alarm TWO freaking times during this little chickpea episode. That’s two times more than I wanted to deal with.  And yes, I did salt the shit out of them because hello, they are chickpeas.  I knew a miracle was not going to occur in the oven that would make them taste like chocolate so I decided to hope for potato chips.

Here they are in a pretty bowl. Guess what? They tasted like shit. Oven-baked little turd balls.  Nobody in the house liked them and we all agreed that chickpeas just do not belong in our lives.

Not a winner this time, but I do appreciate knowing that my smoke alarm is looking out for me and mine.

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