Honey Balsamic Roasted Chickpeas

I have never been a fan of beans.  All of my life, that gritty, grainy, beany texture has always been something that just makes me want to gag.  However, beans are healthy, and they’re cheap (a very good things when you’re living on a college student budget, like we are right now), so I’ve tried quite a few different recipes that people promised made that icky bean texture go away (including making hummus, and a suggestion that we cook and mash up white beans with garlic and rosemary.  “It tastes just like mashed potatoes!” they promised.  No.  It most certainly didn’t), and they never really worked, until last night.  Yesterday, we finally found a method of making beans that I was actually willing to eat.  And willing to eat in fairly large quantities.  We took chickpeas and roasted them (adapting this recipe slightly).  The kids really loved the chickpeas too- they kept snitching them out of the bowl to snack on them while they were waiting for dinner to be done.

Ingredients:
16 oz bag of dry chickpeas (also called garbanzo beans)
Lightly salted water (for soaking the beans- salt optional)
3 Tbsp Olive Oil
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp Honey
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp salt, or more to taste, depending on how salty you like your chickpeas
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp ground red pepper

Soak the chickpeas in a container of lightly salted water for at least 24 hours.  You'll want to be sure the beans are covered with at least an inch of water, because they'll be soaking a lot of it up.  After soaking for 24 hours, drain and rinse the soaked chickpeas and spread them out in a single layer on a large greased baking sheet.  Preheat the oven to 400º.  In a small bowl, mix together olive oil, honey, balsamic vinegar, basil, rosemary, salt, oregano, thyme, garlic powder, and red pepper, then drizzle over the top of the chickpeas and stir until well coated.  Bake at 400 for 30-40 minutes or until fairly well browned, stirring halfway through.

Beet Pasta

 

Red beet pasta is one of those things that Justin has been wanting to try ever since we first bought the pasta cookbook that has inspired so much of our experimental cooking this year.  I was dubious at first- never actually having tried beets before, I wasn't sure what would go well with it- but Justin won me over, and I was glad that he did.  These noodles turned out to be really tasty.

Ingredients:

1 medium red beet

1 Tbsp vinegar

Pinch of salt

2 large eggs

10 oz all purpose flour

(You only need 2 oz, or 1/4 cup worth of the beet once it's cooked- if you want to use more than 1/4 cup of beet, increase the flour/eggs accordingly.  Also, a drained can of cooked beets will work for this too, though the recipe book says you won't get as bright of a color.)

Cut the greens off the top of the beet, then place it in a medium pot with a lid and add enough water to cover by about 2 inches.  Add the vinegar and salt and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat, and simmer covered, for about 45 minutes, or until beet is tender when pierced with a fork.  Cool, then rub off the skin.  Chop up 1/4 cup (about 2 oz) of the beet and place it in a food processor with the eggs.  Process until finely ground and only small pieces of beet remain)

Put the flour into a bowl and make a well in the center to form a "volcano."  Pour the beet and egg mixture into the center of the volcano and then beat together, slowly mixing more and more flour in from the edges until it forms a dough ball.  Add more water if needed, 1 Tbsp at a time, continuing to knead by hand until all the flour is incorporated into the dough ball, and it is soft, but doesn't stick to your fingers.  Knead for 5 minutes or so by hand until the dough is cohesive and moderately smooth. 

Cover with a damp cloth or plastic wrap and allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes at room temperature.  Then, either send through a pasta machine, or knead for another 10 minutes or so, until the dough is completely smooth and elastic, and roll out with a rolling pin until desired consistency, and cut into noodles.

The artisan pasta cookbook recommends serving this pasta with a strong cheese sauce.  Alfredo sauce works really well with the subtle beet flavor as well.

Cardamom Vanilla Cherry Jam

Last week we went down to my parents' house and picked a TON of cherries off their tree.  The first batch of jam we made was tasty but didn't really thicken up, so we thought we'd give the jam another shot with a different recipe.  When I found this cardamom vanilla cherry jam recipe, Justin and I knew that's what we wanted to try- but then our store didn't carry the low-sugar pectin called for in the recipe, so we used decided to adapt the cooked cherry jam recipe that came inside our box of pectin to include cardamom and vanilla.  I did my math a bit wrong in trying to figure out the proportions to use with 3.25 cups of cherries instead of 4 cups and the recipe turned out super cardamom flavored.  It's still a smashing success- Justin wants to use it to make a jelly roll cake- but I'd probably reduce the cardamom a bit if we decide to try the recipe again (and we do have enough cherries to try a second go at it, so we just might do that!).

Ingredients:
3-1/4 cups finely chopped cherries (the instructions specify to use a dry ingredients measuring cup for the fruit)
1/4 cup lemon juice
4-1/2 cups sugar
1 box pectin
5 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp plus 1/8 tsp cardamom
(1/2 tsp butter or margarine- optional)

Directions:
Add fruit, lemon juice, vanilla, cardamom, and pectin to a small stock pot.  Add butter or margarine to reduce foaming, if desired (we didn't do that).  Bring to a rolling boil (one which doesn't stop when you stir it).  Add sugar to the fruit mixture in the pot. Return to a rolling boil and boil for 4 minutes.  Remove pot from heat and skim off any foam with a metal spoon.  Ladle immediately into prepared jars, and can using the instructions that come with your canner. :)

We doubled this recipe (made 2 batches simultaneously in different pots) and ended up with a little bit more than 2 quarts plus a pint.

Update:  Originally we used 1/2 tsp cardamom, but that seemed a bit too strong of a cardamom flavor.  Redoing the recipe with 1/4 tsp plus 1/8 tsp ended up being just right, so I've updated the recipe to reflect the change.