chickpea & olive stew

I like to make huge batches of soups and stews, especially in the fall and winter, and freeze them in empty peanut butter jars. It’s super comforting in my lazier moments to be able to grab something out of the freezer for lunch or dinner, plus it’s a lot cheaper than getting take-out, which is my main tendency in these lazy moments. And generally healthier.

This stew is really easy to put together, very hearty and filling and vegan. It’s also very inexpensive to make, mostly coming from tins of things in the pantry. The generous olives and garlic make it especially rich and briny. I like to make it fairly spicy, but feel free to ramp up or down the chili flakes to your liking. Ladle over some fluffy (and practically instant) couscous for a real quick dinner. It’s easy to scale this recipe up or down, I like to make a huge vat for freezing but you can easily halve or double this.

chickpea and olive stew:

• 4 large tins chickpeas

• 4 tins whole tomatoes

• 4 cups vegetable stock

• 1 cup mixed olives

• 1 whole bulb garlic, peeled and smashed

• 1 shallot, very finely sliced

• 1-2 tsp crushed chili flakes

• 2 tbs olive oil

• Juice from 1 lemon

• ½ cup parsley chopped

Saute garlic, chili flakes and shallot in oil until fragrant and beginning to colour. Add tomatoes cook for a few more minute. Add stock and about half the olives. Reduce heat to low and cook for about an hour, or until the stew is thick and tomatoes are broken down. Add lemon juice and remaining olives and cook for about 5 more minutes. Serve with couscous and lots of parsley sprinkled on top.

Note: to cook couscous, combine equal volumes dry couscous and boiling water in a pot. Cover with a lid and steam about 10 minutes. If you have stock, use that instead of water. Otherwise throw a bouillon cube in there. I like to add crushed chili flakes, dried minced garlic and parsley flakes. A glug of olive oil or a pat of butter wouldn’t go amiss here.  

best ever tahini dressing

I always loved tahini dressings I tried when other people make them, and I always thought they were kind of bland and disappointing when I made them. But I discovered that the answer is to just throw all the bright, salty, umami, herby flavours I can think of into the dressing: nutritional yeast, miso, herbs, jalepenos and garlic. It was the tahini dressing of my dreams. It brightens up winter roast vegetables, but it's light and perfect for summery salads. It's also a great dip for raw vegetables or falafel. I sometimes just eat a whole sliced cucumber dipped in this sauce for my dinner. After all the energy you put into making elaborate holiday dinners, you deserve something easy and healthy. Or you can really go for it and actually put together a salad, if you feel ambitious.  

You can double or triple it and make a big batch. Use it to motivate yourself to eat vegetables all week long. 

best ever tahini dressing:

• 1/3 cup tahini

• big handful each parsley and cilantro

• 3 tbs flaked nutritional yeast

• 1/4 cup olive oil

• 2 tbs miso paste

• 2-3 cloves garlic

• 4-5 sliced pickled jalepenos

• 4 tbs lemon juice

• 2 tbs apple cider vinegar

• 1 tsp cumin

• salt and pepper

• a few tbs water, thin to your desired consistency

Combine all ingredients a food processor and blend until totally combined. Serve over a big green salad roast vegetables, cucumber sliced or whatever you like. 

chimichurri potato salad

Parsley is highly underrated. If you ever though parsley was boring and only for sad garnishes, chimichurri will change your mind. Parsley sings in chimichurri a bright, acidic, spicy and garlicky sort of salsa verde sauce. Chimichurri is Argentinian, traditionally served as steak sauce. But it's also amazing on chicken, fish, vegetables, sandwiches and pretty much everything. I always make a big batch every time because it tends to find its way into all my meals for a few days. 

I had a bit of a childhood potato salad phobia, because typically potato salad was the intersection of two foods that made me highly nervous: gloopy mayonnaise and wobbly boiled eggs. But potato salad doesn't need to have a thick mayonnaise dressing at all. It can have a light, vinegary, herby dressing instead and chimichurri dressing fits the bill very nicely. It's sunny, springy and ideal for picnics and barbecues. 

chimichurri potato salad:

• 2-3 cups parsley (can substitute up to half cilantro if you wish)
• 1/2 cup olive oil 
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• big pinch chili flakes
• generous black pepper and salt
• 2 pounds small, waxy potatoes 

In a large pot, cover potatoes with cold water and bring to a boil. Cook until potatoes are fork tender and drain off water. 

While potatoes cook, blend all other ingredients in a food processor until a loose paste forms. Toss with hot potatoes and set aside to cool. Serve chilled or room temperature. 

chickpea fries with spicy aioli

I really like french fries. I like french fries way too much, I want to eat them all the time. I like them with stuff on them, I like them unadorned. I want to order them any time I see them on a menu, I have to hold myself back occasionally and order something an adult might eat. I also wanted to make them at home, and I have tried and failed. I have tried lots of different ways with very little success. Complicated methods that involve triple cooking, parboiling and freezing several times. I have tried frying quickly in super hot oil and more slowly in merely quite hot oil. I have tried the strangely convincing cold oil method that Cook's Illustrated lulled me into believing in, and then dashed all my hopes. I have still never made amazing, crispy fries at home.

Enter chickpea fries, or panisse as they are called in France, which are very easy to make at home and fill the french fries niche perfectly: salty, crispy and highly dippable. Traditionally these would be deep fried in olive oil, but deep frying is such a pain, and stinks up your house. I roasted these in a hot oven with a little slick of oil and they were beautifully crisp with puffy, pillowy soft insides. You can call them panisse if you are serving them at a dinner party and fries if you are serving them to a toddler. Or me.

These are slightly healthier (or a lot healthier, depending on how you assess the healthiness of potatoes and chickpeas) than potato fries, so eating a whole bunch of them doesn't give me the guilt hangover of eating a load of french fries. I mean, they are basically hummus. You can't feel too bad about eating hummus can you? No, you can't.

Chickpea flour might be tricky to find, but I have had good luck in most big grocery stores, or in Indian or Mediteranian groceries.

chickpea fries

Adapted from the New York Times

• 2 cups chickpea flour
• 1 cup water
• 1 tsp each, garlic powder, paprika, salt and pepper
• finely chopped parsley

Bring water to a boil in a medium sized saucepan. Slowly add in chickpea flour, stirring vigorously to avoid lumps. Cook over medium heat until very thick, like the texture of wet cement.

Pour batter into a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and chill for at least an hour, or overnight if you wish.

Pre-heat oven to 450°F. Cut the set batter into batons, squares or whatever shape you like. Batons are good for dipping though. Roast in hot oven in a little oil, turning fries after about 10 minutes, or when the bottoms are deep brown, and cook about 10 more minutes. Serve sprinkled with salt, pepper and parsley and dip in spicy aioli.

spicy aioli

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise (use vegan mayonnaise to make the whole recipe vegan) 
• 3 tbs lime juice
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 clove finely minced garlic
• 1 tsp each salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients well in a small bowl.

jammy walnut cookies

I'm totally fascinated by aquafaba, a new egg white substitute that has been getting popular in the last year or two. Aquafaba is something I have been unknowingly throwing away for years, and before I saw it in action, I couldn't really believe that it was actually going to work. Aquafaba is chickpea brine, the water that I have been tipping out of canned beans and pouring away down the drain! But it has a secret power to become an uncanny egg white replacer. It makes very fluffy, glossy meringues indistinguishable from egg white meringue. Uncooked aquafaba meringue has the faintest beany smell, but sugar and a bit of vanilla takes that away, and cooked, the stuff is an incredibly convincing egg white mimic. 

To make it work, it helps to reduce the aqua faba by about 25% to thicken it slightly, so 1 cup becomes 3/4 cup. To reduce, heat over medium heat in a small pan for around 10-15 minutes, checking the volume frequently until you get 3/4 the original volume.Now, every time I eat chickpeas I save the liquid in a jar in the freezer for later. I can be frozen and then reduced after, or reduced and then frozen.

These cookies are soft and chewy, with a molten, caramelly little jam puddle through the centre. 

jammy walnut cookies: 

Adapted from The New York TImes

• 1 ¾ cups blanched almonds, toasted

• 1 ½ cups walnuts, toasted

• 1 cup sugar

• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 1/2 cup aqua faba, reduced by 25%

• ½ cup raspberry jam

Grind almonds and walnuts in a food processor until mostly finely ground, a few bigger pieces are ok. Combine nuts with sugar, cinnamon and vanilla in a medium bowl. 

In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix aqua faba with the whisk attachment on medium speed until very frothy, about 3 minutes. Fold into nut mixture. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, overnight if you like. 

Heat oven to 325°.  Scoop golf ball sized cookies onto a parchment lined baking sheet and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, cool for a couple minutes and then carefully make in an indentation in the centre of each cookie. Drop a teaspoon of jam in each and then bake 10 more minutes, until the bottom edges of the cookies are golden brown and jam is bubbling. 

maple walnut honeycomb

One more quick candy for any really severely last minute holiday emergencies you are having. Honeycomb or sponge toffee is a light, crispy, foamy candy - it's what's inside a Crunchy bar. It's great with chocolate on top, or with maple syrup and toasted walnuts as I did here. It's quick, it's an excellent stocking stuffer and you will find watching it magically bubble up strangely soothing in the midst of seasonal panic. Or at least I did. If the foaming isn't quite soothing enough, there is also some very cathartic smashing to look forward to. It puffs up so much it seems impossible. Make sure to choose a large enough pan to contain the foam explosion.

I hope you have a lovely, happy Christmas or holiday or your choice! 

maple walnut honeycomb

adapted from Merrill Stubbs at Food 52

• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1 tbs baking soda
• 1/3 cup toasted walnuts, roughly chopped
• big pinch flaky salt, if you wish
   

Line a cookie sheet with parchment and place this on a heat tolerant cutting board or trivet. 

Heat sugar, syrup and 1/3 cup water in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Swirl mixture a couple times but do not stir. Cook until mixture reaches 300°F on a candy thermometer. 

Remove the pan from heat and very quickly stir in baking soda. Mixture will foam up a lot so stir rapidly to mix soda thoroughly. Add half the nuts and dump mixture out onto prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle remaining nuts and salt on top. 

Let toffee cool completely and then smash it up into bite size chunks. Store in an airtight container, toffee will wilt and weep if left out for too long.

Photos: Tyrel Hiebert