I really wanted to like this chickpea casserole. It's my New Year's Resolution to cook with more beans, lentils, and chickpeas, and besides, it was so full of interesting and unusual things that I was curious. Would it be like a quiche? A gratin? A luscious, oozing cheese dish that would become a sort of healthy replacement for baked macaroni and cheese on a chilly winter's night?
It wasn't really any of these things. It wasn't inedible or disgusting, but the texture was odd and clumping, with the cottage cheese curds clinging to the chickpeas in an odd and displeasing manner. I felt that the lemon zest overpowered the other flavors, which is saying something considering that the other flavors were raw shallots, raw garlic, and quite a lot of parmesan. I could barely taste the herbs, and the brown rice was more or less superfluous because you sure couldn't taste that, either. On the whole, I felt that the balance of flavors needed some serious tweaking. But it won't be by me doing this tweaking, because I'm not making it again.
The worst of it was that I initially considered halving the recipe, because five cups of chickpeas seemed like an awful lot. But then I thought "This looks like a lot of work, so I might as well have leftovers." Big mistake: it made enough to feed eight or ten people, and now I have a refrigerator full of leftovers that only I am likely to eat, since Mr. B is out of town on business and Baby B turned up her adorable little nose at it and said "Ucky!" until I broke down and made her some toast with peanut butter instead.
You know a recipe is less than wonderful when your favorite thing in it is the breadcrumb topping....... back to the drawing board for my plan to start liking chickpeas.
The one good thing was that I figured out a way to cook chickpeas that makes them at least taste better than the canned version. You soak them overnight in lots of cold water, and the next morning you drain them, cover them with lots of boiling water in the slow cooker, and cook them on high for three hours. Or I suppose you could cook them on low all day while you're out at work. My little 1.35lb bag of dried chickpeas made a whopping eight cups of cooked ones, so I have loads of chickpeas left over to practice on.
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