Quick Chickpea Pasta

This was just a quick lunch I whipped together. This is the kind of one pot meal I often eat, although I usually add more vegetables. I don't usually post about this kind of thing, because it seems pretty basic, but it's a great, easy meal to put together.

I was cooking for JD and I both, so I couldn't add asparagus, spinach, mushrooms, or broccoli and the kale and carrots both had to be really well cooked and small. I had some leftover penne, and I made a big pot of chickpeas the other day, so I would be able to throw stuff together easily this week, so they were the foundation of this one pot meal.


First, I sautéed the chickpeas so they'd be a bit more tender, and added the seasonings; garlic* nutritional yeast, crushed red pepper flakes, sea salt, fresh ground black pepper, and a tiny dash of Old Bay. While that was simmering, I washed and cut the kale and carrots. I know it doesn't look like it, but that's a whole bunch of kale, and only half a package of penne; all of the kale is just hiding out below. After the greens were tender, I added the penne and cooked until it was warm, and the liquid had all evaporated. I wanted dry pasta with a "fried" texture today, but it would equally good with a bit of unsweetened soymilk to make it saucier. Or with any of the vegetables I mentioned above, or even diced onion, zucchini, or roasted red pepper. Yum.


*The garlic I've been getting lately has been really aggravating! It looks like a regular head of garlic, but when you go to peel one clove, it falls apart into 6 unpeeled cloves, then when you try to peel one of those really small cloves, they fall apart into 3 microscopic cloves! It gets really frustrating, really quickly. How anyone else come across this?