Craving Chickpeas...

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Happy December!

Last week I was craving spicy soup, which has nothing to do with Christmas or December but just my own odd taste buds.  I looked through recipes both online and in my massive stacks of books looking for just the right one. I found this one by Rachael Ray that looked interesting: Indian-spiced Chickpea, and this one, Morroccan Chickpea, from Good Foods, and then this, Chickpea Chili, from MyRecipes.  I ended up kind of making my own up loosely based on the last one except I did not have butternut squash on hand and I left out pimento-stuffed olives because seriously I couldn't imagine that flavor with the soup I was craving. Once I settled on a recipe I found some friends to invite over to be my tasters.

I made a batch of brown rice, tossed up a fresh salad, and this rustic bread to break together. Oh and I had a couple of chicken breasts on hand and as other people love their protein I shredded it and left it as a topping to be tossed into the soup like the parsley and sour cream. They left quite full, smiling and with half a loaf of bread in their hands. Also they'd both done well at Spite and Malice and Taboo; games that we played.  It was a lovely winter night; cold outside, toasty on the inside.

I finished Maggie Stiefvater's new book, All the Crooked Saints, tonight. She is a very imaginative writer and I think she casts a spell on each of her stories. This one, set in Colorado in 1962, is about the Soria family and their ability to collect pilgrims looking for miracles and it's about radio waves, saints, and love.  I don't understand how she weaves that altogether but she does. My Maggie favorites are The Scorpio Races and The Raven Boys series. Now I'm on to Choosing Civility by P.M. Forni and Carrying Albert Home by Homer Hickam.