Lemony Chickpea Bake

If you have about an hour to make dinner, this is a sure-hit-recipe.  It takes less than 10 minutes of prep, which is about the time it takes for the oven to preheat, and then it cooks for 40 minutes and comes out tasting amazing!  I'm still trying to figure out how such simple ingredients produce such a lovely tasting dish, but it's true!

Thanks to the food processor, things are quite easy.

The lemon flavor in the dish is not over-powering at all.  If any one flavor is present, I'm not sure what I would say.  The wonderful herbs?  Combined with the lemon and chickpeas?  It really is a great pairing.

I think I've talked before about how it can be hard at times to not cook all-in-one dinners.  One-pot meals, if you will.  Stews and soups.  So this, in my mind, is like a delightfully seasoned chicken breast.  It's the "protein" on the plate.  It was originally supposed to be a loaf, but when I turned it out (even after letting it sit for the 20 minutes) it broke and was not pretty.  What I realized is that I didn't cook it long enough, but I'm glad I didn't or else it would have been dry.  So from now on, I'm just baking it as a bake, not a loaf.

I served this with Cider Glazed Carrots, green beans, and a salad.  I'm also going to try and bake it with some corn thrown in to see how that tastes and let you know. (Turns out it's really good!  Scot prefers it without the corn, but I really liked the complimenting flavors.)

Slightly adapted from this recipe.

Lemon Chickpea Bake

Serves 4-6

• 2 cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1 red onion, rough chopped
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 1 TBLS herbs de province
• 1 tsp lemon pepper
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 1/2 cups frozen/thawed corn (opt)

-- Set aside in a mixing bowl 3/4 cup chickpeas, put the rest of the chickpeas in a food processor

-- Put onion, garlic and spices in the food processor and pulse until crumbly and bottom just starts to "cream".  Remove to the mixing bowl

-- Add oats (and corn if using) and mix well, smushing everything together

-- Put mixture into a greased loaf pan (or 8x8 if using the corn) and pat down firmly.

-- Bake, uncovered, 40 minutes at 400.  Let cool 10-15 minutes before scooping out (don't over bake or it will be dry!  You want it almost flaky, but still moist.)