Vegan MoFo - Trying something new

It's day 2 of Vegan MoFo - I hope no one is burnt out from trying to read all 700 of the participating blogs! (Full disclosure - I'm not reading all 700-odd blogs.)

As I mentioned in my last post, I made an assload of chickpeas on Sunday. Part of my plan was to make falafel, but the other part of the plan was to only use things that I had on hand. Unfortunately, I used the last of my breadcrumbs making Chickpea Broccoli Casserole (nom!) last night and therefore had none to put in the falafel. So, I needed to come up with something else to make for dinner.

Someone suggested yesterday that I use my abundance of chickpeas to make Chickpeas Romesco from Veganomicon. For some reason, I barely even glanced at this recipe before. Maybe it was because I just can't be bothered roasting peppers, and it would've taken a lot of forward planning. Well, as luck would have it, I bought jarred roasted peppers for a tester recipe I made a while back, and I had exactly enough left for this recipe. Not only that, but I also had every other ingredient apart from the serrano pepper (which I probably wouldn't have bothered with anyway).

This came together really easily, though it was a bit time consuming. I sped up the process by using pre-ground almonds instead of grinding them myself. It would've taken me less time if my dishwasher would actually wash all the dishes and therefore my garlic press had been clean.

I served it over couscous, since I could throw that together during the 10-minute sitting phase of cooking the chickpeas. (Sorry, it's not the best picture, and none of them will be because it's winter in northern Europe and therefore dark by 3.30.)



I can't believe I waited so long to make this! It's amazingly delicious. Mike loved it too. Apart from the absence of the serrano, I didn't make any significant changes. Since the recipe suggests fire-roasted tomatoes, which are unavailable here, I added a few drops of liquid smoke for the smokiness those might provide (a tip I got from Liz at Cooking the Vegan Books).

If you've never made Chickpeas Romesco, bust out your copy of V'con and get cookin'!