INGREDIENTS

150 gms chickpeas, soaked overnight
1 vegetable cube

1 eggplant (approx 200 gms)
1 green pepper (100 gms)
1 tomato (approx 120 gms)
1/2 onion (approx 100 gms)
4 cloves garlic
1 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp coriander powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
2 guindillas
2 tsp tomato paste
1 tbsp olive oil

DIRECTIONS

Boil the chickpeas in a pressure cooker with 1 litre of water for 20 – 25 minutes until soft.

Cube all the vegetables and mince the garlic.

In a wok or frying pan, heat the olive oil and sauté the onions and garlic. Add the guindilla and continue frying on medium heat. Throw in the green pepper, aubergine and tomatoes and mix well.

Season with the spices and add salt to taste. Add the tomato paste, mix well then add the chickpeas. Save the liquid and add as needed until it is the thickness you like.

Serve hot. If not on the South Beach Diet, serve with couscous!

From time to time, you “discover” a favourite dish and this is one of them. Hubby had told me about this dish which he cooked one day after chatting with a fellow Spanish friend at work, Carolina. It was her grandmother’s recipe.

I instantly took a liking to it. You could say its a kind of cross between a “vegetarian” paella and risotto. That’s how I would describe it. Except for the garbanzos. No garbanzos in either paella or risotto!

Its a lovely, light dish and since we took a liking to low-calorie, meat-free dishes, this has become one of our favourites!

100 gms = 82 calories

INGREDIENTS

Serves 3

200 gms Garbanzos (dried chick peas)

100 gms rice

150 gms red pepper (after cleaning)

90 gms onions

120 gms fresh tomatoes

3 cloves garlic

3 tbsp olive oil

2 vegetable or chicken cubes

1 tsp paprika powder

DIRECTIONS

The night before, soak chick peas in enough water to allow it to expand.

To prepare the dish, drain chick peas and rinse. Cook for 30 minutes in a pressure cooker with the vegetable cubes and 1.5 litres of water. When cooked, drain the liquid into a measuring cup. You should have approximately 900ml of the liquid. Put the cooked chick peas aside.

Chop all the vegetables finely. Heat the olive oil in a non-stick pan and fry the chopped ingredients. Cook slowly over a slow fire for 15 minutes or until the onions are transparent. Add the paprika powder and continue frying over very low heat. After 5 minutes or so, add the rice and mix well.

Add the saved liquid, little by little, mix well and let it simmer on low heat. Stir from time to time  and when the liquid is absorbed, add more, and repeat until the rice is cooked. You should have used up all the 900 ml of liquid. At the end, add the cooked chick peas, mix well, heat through and remove.

Serve hot.

Stews or cocidos, as they are called in Spanish are typical main dishes in Spain, particularly in the central and northern regions of Spain. The Cocido Madrileño is named after the province of Madrid, where it originated.

Cocido Madrileño was traditionally prepared in a large cauldron, simmering away all day long, hardly bubbling. This boiled meat dinner has lots of flavor from the  meats, sausage, vegetables and garbanzo beans used in the dish and is well-known as one of Spain’s national dishes. The dish is actually two courses – soup and a main dish.

The soup or “caldo”, is a clear stock which is rich with the juices of the various meats used to prepare the dish. Caldo may be saved to be used in many Spanish dishes but is often served as the first course with a couple of spoonfuls of vermicelli cooked in it.

The chickpeas, meat and vegetables – the cocido – are usually served as the second course with a bit of the caldo ladled over it.

Since we started “eating healthy” we cook Cocido at least once a week. We don’t use all the meats traditionally used in the dish – only chicken and beef and we cut the preparation time by preparing it in a pressure cooker – we still get the same rich taste of the various ingredients used. Another thing we modified is to mince the vegetables before cooking it. We also shred the meat once it is cook because we enjoy eating it as a stew with bread. Really hearty and very low in calories. 1 gm of our Cocido is equivalent to 1 calorie!

INGREDIENTS

Serves 3 as a main meal

250 gms dry chickpeas (garbanzo beans), soaked in water at least 8 hours before cooking

1 chicken breast, bone in, skin on or off

200 gms beef with bones (beef shank is fine)

1 leek

2 medium-sized carrots

2 stalks celery

1 clove garlic

2 Maggi beef or chicken cubes

1/4 tsp smoked paprika powder

2 litres water

Salt to taste

DIRECTION

Clean the chicken breast and beef and leave to dry in a colander.

Drain and rinse the chickpeas in warm water – cold water will split the peas. Keeping root end intact, trim the leek of roots and dark green leaves. Discard the leafy part of the leek. Cut the leek at the top 1/3 and wash the leek to remove any sand particles or dirt.

In a pressure cooker, put the drained chickpeas, chicken breast, beef bones, the whole bottom 2/3 of the leek, Maggi cubes, smoked paprika and the water. Do not cover the pressure cooker. Place on medium heat and bring it to the boil.

In the meantime, peel and wash carrots, celery and garlic. Chop these up together with the top 1/3 of the leek.

Add the chopped vegetables to the rest of the ingredients in the pressure cooker, cover and put the pressure setting to “2”. Boil it under pressure for 40 minutes.

Remove the chicken breast and beef from the pressure cooker, de-bone and shred, then put the meat back into the soup. Discard the piece of cooked leek. Add salt to taste if necessary.

Serve hot with warm country bread.