Kala Chana (Black Chickpea) Curry

What a manic few weeks its been, with Christmas round the corner, the shopping and trying to hide the kids presents has been a nightmare!

The seconds always seem to turn into minutes and the minutes into hours and the hours into day and weeks and before you know it a few weeks have passed and I haven't had a chance to update my blog.  So I am determined to finish this blog today even though there are 2 kids wanting to go on the laptop to look at pictures of themselves (vain or what! - I wonder who they get that from!)

In other news.... the reason for not being able to blog for a while is due to having to prepare for my court case, it wasn't anything glamorous or sordid - just a car accident I had in January 2013 and the verdict........ 'I rule in favour of the claimant' said the judge... I WON!!!!!!!!!! It was an amazing feeling and such a relief that its over.

Anyway, I'm sure you're probably getting bored of me harping on about what's been going on in my life and the main reason you're probably reading my blog is to get some inspiration for some veggie food.  I've made lots of different dishes over the last few weeks, so I'm hoping that I will be able to inspire you to cook some of the delicious dishes!

Don't forget my twitter page @bareveggie and facebook page bare veggie please do follow me and share with your other foodie friends.

So here it is Kala Chana (Black Chickpea) curry.  The family love this, and I make the kids one separately and add potatoes to it.

Chickpeas are an excellent source of vitamins and nutrients and are low in fat and high in fibre and protein and they are absolutely delicious as well as very healthy.

These are tinned kala chana

Preparation time: 5 minutes (if using tinned chana)
Cooking time: 20 mins

Ingredients
1 can of Kala Chana Approx 250g, wash these well in hot water in a colander or if you have time you can use dried chana which have been soaked overnight and cook them in a pressure cooker.
75ml Sunflower oil
2 Green chillis
1/2 can of chopped tin tomatoes
1/4 tsp Jaggery or you can use 1/4 tsp of sugar
2 tsp Coriander and cumin powder
1/4 tsp Turmeric
1 tsp Salt
Handful of chopped coriander
50ml Warm water
1/2 Weetabix

Method

• Heat the oil for a few minutes and add the finely chopped green chillis.
• Once the chillis start to sizzle, then add the tomatoes and let this cook for a few minutes
• Next add salt, jaggery, coriander and cumin powder, turmeric, mix this all well and let it cook for a further few minutes.
• Add the kala chana and freshly chopped coriander, add the warm water and let this simmer for 10 mins on a medium heat, mix occasionally and then lower the heat and cook for a further 5 minutes, don't forget to mix every now and again!
• Just before you're ready to serve, crumble half a weetabix into the curry and mix well, the good thing about adding weetabix is that it soaks up the excess water, so that you're left with a lovely thick sauce - let it cook for a further 5 minutes and its ready.

We have this with chapattis and mango rus (mango pulp) again this can be made fresh or if you're in a rush like me crack open a can!... and don't forget poppadoms as well.

Chapattis

The feast!

Chana cooking away