Poischichade / Chickpea Dip

Monday through Thursday evenings at our house are now a little hectic. Scott has class Monday through Wednesday evenings from 6PM-9PM, and music with the boys on Thursday nights. It's often too much to get dinner ready before 5 o'clock, so that means that I have to make things that are easy to heat up or eat separately. This is definitely going to make it into our rotation, especially as the ground warms up and more local produce is available. I almost want to have a small bowl of it in the fridge just to have handy for snacking. It was that good.

This is the Provençale take on hummus. No tahini, but keep the lemon juice and cumin. You roast one large bell pepper and blend it up with two cans of chickpeas, lemon juice, a full tablespoon of cumin, cayenne and a little olive oil. I'm pretty good about keeping with seasonal vegetables, but bell peppers are my weakness. In the middle of winter when the only things available that might be local are winter squash and onions, I have an easy time avoiding tomatoes, cucumbers and most of the fruit that's being trucked up from far, far away. Peppers are the one thing that my body tells me to keep buying. This dip doesn't make it any easier to avoid them.



The book recommends serving with pita or grilled Merguez sausages. We had whole wheat pita, radishes, carrots and snap peas (the veggies organic & from California). I'm in love. I love the homey flavor of cumin, and it played well with the heat from the cayenne and the tang from the lemon juice. Filling, but light enough for the late hour of the meal. I happily took it to work for lunch a few days later in the week. I just signed up for my own classes to get ready for school in the fall at NNU, and I'm most definitely going to be keeping some chickpeas in the pantry for busy nights. Next time, I'm attempting my own pita with Canyon Bounty Farm's whole wheat flour to go along. I'm sure it'll be delightful.