Howdy, vegan food lovers!
One of the things I love about cooking is that you can spend as little or as much time as you want in the kitchen. You can take a vegan recipe and make it as easy or as complex as you like, and it’ll be good either way.
Let the flavors sit or whip right through a recipe, whatever you like you’ll get something tasty on the table.
Life gets busy for all of us, and I’m no exception in that regard. I work full-time for myself as a ghostwriter of ALL THINGS, I am an indie author (find my books here), traveler and lover of all things books & television. What’s the point? My life is full and some days there’s not enough time in the day to do everything I want to do, and when that happens you get an easy vegan recipe like this one.
It does take time simply because of the number of ingredients, but it’s easy to make and if you want to shave some time off your minutes in the kitchen, make it big batch and have it for lunch and dinner, which is what I did.
This is the beauty of my old fallback, vegan bowl recipes, they’re good for a twofer.
Don’t Be A Stickler
Another good thing about vegan bowl recipes? They are not picky about goes in’em. If you don’t have one thing, substitute it for another. If you want to toss an ingredient in raw, go for it! Want to cook something, do that!
Your mouth has to like it, not mine.
Keep The Chickpeas
I know I said you could use anything you want in this recipe, and you can. But I recommend you stick with the chickpeas to start. Why? Because they are a nice way to ease into the idea of baking beans.
I don’t mean baked beans as in the ones from my childhood that are drenched in ketchup and sugar. Nope, no way man. I mean baked as in you take canned (or dry) beans, drain & rinse them, and coat them in your favorite herbs and spices. Toss them onto a baking sheet and pop them in the oven for about 15 minutes.
Butter beans also work excellently with this application so you could use them, but sometimes they split and get a little crunchy and you might not like that if you’re not used to it. I love them like that because even crunchy on the outside, butter beans are still so creamy in the middle.
And now, you can do whatever else you like.
Promise.
Kitchen Tools:
Large mixing bowl
Silicon baking mats
Serving spoon
Kitchen scale
Cutting board
Kitchen knife
Ingredients:
Chickpeas
Onion
Leeks
Dried cranberries
Chopped pecans
Parsley (fresh)
Basmati rice
Ginger root
Turmeric
Chili pepper
Directions:
Get the rice going first because you really want to let it cool so you can fluff it and get all the little grains on their own. When the rice is done cooking, remove it from the heat and tilt the lid so it’s mostly covered but has a little room to breathe.
Drain & rinse chickpeas. Season with salt, black pepper, ground turmeric, paprika, garlic & cumin. Toss to coat evenly on the baking sheet. Cook on 185C/375F for about 15 minutes. Cook less for a softer chickpea or a little more for a bit of a crunch.
For the veggies: You can cook the ginger, onion, chili pepper & leeks on the stove if you want or you can place them in the oven on another silicon baking sheet. The choice is yours. I wanted the onions nice and caramelized so I did it on the stovetop in about 12 minutes.
Add the dried cranberries to the skillet just before you turn off the heat so they get a little plump.
Chop the nuts and parsley and place in a large mixing bowl.
Assemble! Fluff the rice and add it to the bowl along with the chickpeas, and the onions & leeks. Toss until everything is blended and serve. In my house, it’s me & Cos so this made 4 servings for 2 adults at just under 500 calories per serving.
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The Spicy Spatula 
Whatcha think?