Return of the Chickpeas

I love chickpeas.  They're my favorite legume. 

Craig likes kidney beans; I like chickpeas.  When he was deployed last year, I went through a lot of chickpeas; always dried and cooked on my stove top (and sometimes my crock pot), never canned.  I once had a bad experience with canned chickpeas and I cannot bring myself to eat them again.  And this was a long time ago.  Like 11 years ago, when we lived in Hawaii.   When we first moved to Virginia I  bought a can of chickpeas thinking I was over this issue, but they sat in my pantry for a very long time, collecting a thick layer of dust, before I donated them to the canned food drive. 

Clearly, I have trouble forgetting.

Oddly enough,  I also have trouble remembering things.  But, that's beside the point.

Anyway, when Craig returned from his deployment at the end of August, I sort of forgot about my beloved chickpeas.  Craig continued to eat his kidney beans, but I didn't cook any more chickpeas.  I'm not sure why?  It wasn't intentional.  Perhaps I was busy cooking other things and, not to mention, baking up a storm.  My mind, which was once occupied with thoughts of the myriad of chickpea applications out there, became focused on butter, sugar and chocolate. 

Can you blame me?

Since Craig is once again not here, and probably eating his kidney beans while living the 'geographical bachelor' (that's what the Army calls it) life deep in the heart of Texas, I've become reacquainted with chickpeas. 

While I reunite with my legume love, Craig, the ever unfortunate soul, is sharing a trailer with two other dudes, eating kidney beans and watching TV on his new 32' high definition flat screen TV.  Priorities, y'all.  Priorities.  Actually, the cable hasn't been turned on yet, so by Wednesday he'll be watching TV whilst eating kidney beans.  Don't worry, he eats other things, too.  But, we're talking beans here, there's no need to go on and on about pointless stuff.

Ahem.

I have to be honest, chickpeas aren't very photogenic. Or, at least the ones I cooked aren't.  But, I discovered this picnik site which allows you to edit your photos, free of charge.  And, best of all, you can put a stamp on it, like the 'The Neurotic Housewife' stamp on the bottom right corner of these pictures.  I thought that was solely a Photoshop feature, so you could only  imagine my delight when I found out it wasn't.  Oh, happy day.

I don't typically do much photo editing, as evidenced by my amateurish photos, but this was fun.  Even if I still couldn't make chickpeas look pretty.


See, I told you so.

Blech.

Ugly picture.  Tasty dinner.