healthy mediterranean diet meal plan #6

Today’s featured recipe in my Menu of the Day is a simple Mediterranean pasta dish, pasta e ceci (or pasta and chickpeas), with a deeply flavored tomato base sauce. It’s a wonderful example of how easy it is to enjoy vegetarian dinner dishes any day of the week. And I LOVE to meal prep it (pre-pasta addition) because those itty bitty whole grain ditalini noodles will cook up in as much time as it takes for the base to defrost.

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Since moving to the Mediterranean region, I’ve discovered that chickpeas, or garbanzo beans as we call them here, are as much a part of the everyday diet as lentils. Spanish households serve both of these protein-packed legumes most every week because they’re so easy to prepare in so many ways and so affordable.

I’ve come to think of chickpeas as a blank canvas, especially because they are also a pantry powerhouse. I always keep a bag of dried beans ready to soak overnight and pop in the pressure cooker in the morning for a hands-off prep.

But if I forget to take that pre-soak step, a jar or two of pre-cooked chickpeas are always within arm’s reach too. And I gotta say, precooked jars of these gems are world-class options here.

But whether I cook them myself or rely on somebody else to do the honors, there is one step that I consider non-negotiable. Take 5 minutes to slip off the thin skins before using them in any recipe. You’ve seen me do this on YouTube a bunch of times. Once cooked, I just rub them together with my hands in a large bowl of cold water and drain away the skins as they float to the top.

They might not look quite as perfectly pretty as this picture, but you get the idea.

The other reason I’m a big fan of chickpeas is that they are almost unstoppable, equally happy in a hot stew, a cold salad, a blended sauce, a roasted snack, or that most famous use of all for chickpeas, yummy hummus.

So it should come as no surprise that today’s menu features these little pearls two ways in one day. Before you sit down to enjoy that cozy bowl of pasta e ceci, you can enjoy an afternoon snack of some crunchy, crispy roasted chickpeas.

Just a short stay in the oven turns creamy into crunchy and the rest is entirely up to you. Honey, spicy, or a little bit of both!

So let’s get started. If your memory is better than mine, soak some dried chickpeas right now - they’ll be ready to cook anywhere from 4 hours to overnight. And don’t forget to add some baking soda to the soak to reduce any little gassy issues they might cause. Baking soda helps break down the oligosaccharides, those complex sugars in beans that can be hard to digest and tend to cause bloating and gas for some of us.

If you’re a paid subscriber, you’ll find a couple of recipes in the menu PDF besides the one I promised you (mostly because I just can’t help myself). When I can, I’ll reach into the archive and include them so that you don’t have to go hunting around. You’ll also find a few tips for ways to stretch this menu into a meal plan that will cover you for a few days.

It’s time to pull up a chair, grab a cup or a glass and join me in my Mediterranean kitchen while we work our way from one flavor-packed meal to another.

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