Vegan Chickpea and Lemon Brushcetta

Well here it is folks, my first recipe post!

This evening for dinner I decided to modify a Weight Watchers recipe to be vegan: Chickpea and Lemon Brushcetta.

Here’s what you’ll need:
– 15oz can chickpeas
– 1/4 diced red onion
– 1 tablespoon lemon juice
–  2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
– 1 garlic clove, minced
– 1 small (1/2 pound) baguette
– Paprika
– Basil
– Cajun

Now while the recipe for this dish calls for specific amounts of ingredients, I like to live dangerously and eyeball my measurments. I highly recommend this technique if you are lacking a bit of surpise in your life.

Anyways, to start off this dish begin by dicing the red onion. Once the onion is diced (you’ll only need to cut up about half of an onion to make 1/4 cup), heat a small pan on medium. Once the pan is warm pour 1 tablespoon (or whatever looks good) of extra-virgin olive oil. Add the diced onion to the olive oil. Stir the onions around in the olive oil for about 5 minutes, or until the onions start to look transparent. While the onions are cooking, cut up the garlic clove.

Once the onions are done, scoop them on to a few pieces of paper towel, and dab them to remove the excess olive oil.

Next, get a large pan and begin heating that on low-medium. While the pan heats up, begin cutting the french baguette diagonally. For my meal, I only cut 4 slices of bread and saved the rest of the baguette for later.

You’re going to put about 2 tablespoons of the extra-virgin olive oil in the large pan. Add in your slices of the baguette, making sure they soak up a good amount of the olive oil. Let the bread cook on each side for about 2 minutes.

While the bread is cooking, empty the can of chickpeas into a medium sized bowl. Begin mashing up the chickpeas with a fork. The easiest way I found to do this was to first microwave the chickpeas for 15 seconds to soften them, then to push the chickpeas all to one side of the bowl while dragging the fork accross them and applying pressure.

Before you’re done mashing the chickpeas, the bread will be done so make sure you’re keeping your eye on it and flipping the bread accordingly. A huge part of cooking is multitasking. When the bread is crispy on the edges, remove the bread from the pan and put it on a plate and we’ll come back to it in a minute. (Don’t forget to turn the stove off).

Now, finish mashing the chickpeas. Onces those are all nice and mushy looking, add in the onion and garlic. Stir. Then, pour a capfull of the lemon juice and add that to the chickpea/onion/garlic mix. Then, pour a capfull of the extra-virgin olive oil into the mix, and stir it all around thouroughly.

Use a fork or a spoon to scoop some of the chickpea mix onto the bread, spread out evenly. Then, lightly (or not lightly if you like it that way) sprinkle on some of the cajun, paprika, and basil seasoning.

And there you have it! A quick, easy, delicious vegan meal.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and enjoy making this meal for yourself!