Chickpeas are splendid legumes. We always keep a couple of cans of them in (along with a variety of other beans), but I do prefer to soak and cook them myself, as that way they are far, far cheaper. However, I am a bit prone to just lobbing a load in a bowl of water, and then finding I have far many more of the little chaps to deal with than I had anticipated …

I soaked and boiled some on Sunday last week, and then on Monday I chopped red onion, yellow pepper, a tired aubergine, together with some garlic. Fried that off in olive oil, lobbed in a couple of teaspoons of Ras el Hanout spice and some lemon juice, added a load of chickpeas, and cooked it down for half an hour or so. Added some finely chopped flat leaf parsley, and had it with rice for supper. And there was enough to have for lunch the following day with some toasted pitta.

The remaining chickpeas went into the food processor with lots of garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper, and tahini, to make hummus. Hummus is ridiculously easy to make, I really don’t know why I ever buy it! Some of the parsley went in that too (and the rest? Post coming!).