Hello good people!
I hope you had an amazing Halloween! I usually like to dress up and join in the festivities, however I had exams the past two weeks so I was quite busy with school and I just sat back and enjoyed looking at everyone's Halloween costumes. If you dressed up, let me know what you were; I always love seeing inspiration for next year! I personally think that from October-December is the best time of year (also August cause it's ya girl's birthday month) with Thanksgiving, Halloween, Remembrance Day, and (of course) Christmas and New Years so I love seeing all of the festive posts!
As you can see from the title, I have another recipe for y'all! So I did not necessarily mean to make this vegan, I usually add some beef to my chilli, however I had a lot of chickpeas in my pantry and they are loaded with fibre, protein, iron, and some vitamin c so I thought I would use that instead!
This whole thing was actually inspired by one of my favourite social media influencers. Her name is Sarah Lemkus; she is vegan and posts about what she eats, positivity, taking care of your body, and about her beautiful family. She made a version of this and I have been craving it for months until I finally decided one day when I was bored to make it!
This is a super simple recipe that only has a few ingredients and since it is made in a slow cooker it's a no fuss meal. It's actually funny because I am currently soaking chick peas for this exact recipe for tonight.
So this is my chickpea chilli on top of homemade fries!
The first ingredient is of course chickpeas! I measure out 1 1/2 cups of these. They are just regular chickpeas from the brand Suraj, it's a medium sized bag of chickpeas so I soak them in water for about 6 hours to soften them up a bit; the longer the better for soaking, but soak them for at least 6 hours. You can of course use canned chickpeas for this, it does not matter where you get them.
After the 6 hours of soaking the chickpeas, I cut up one red onion, one white onion, 2 stalks of celery, and about a handful of mushrooms. If you want to make it more veggie based, add some cut up bell peppers, carrots, and broccoli with less chickpeas because it does add a lot of them with 1 1/2 cups. Then I added to my slow cooker all of the vegetables, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of beans of your choice (I went with a 6 bean medley) and 1 cup of water! When I added the chickpeas I just poured in the water they were soaking in as well to add more liquid, plus the liquid from the tomatoes and canned beans. I do make this chili a bit more thicker mainly just focusing on a surplus of veggies, chickpeas, and beans, however if you want a traditional chili paste type thing I would add a can of tomato paste and/or 3 cups of either chicken/veggie/beef broth.
For seasonings I also added pink Himalayan salt, pepper, cumin, garlic power/salt, dill, and oregano. Believe me after a few hours your house will smell like a beautiful restaurant.
I let the chilli cook on high in the crock pot/slow cooker for about 4-5 hours to let all of the flavours mix together properly, and then after letting it cook I get the fries ready! For the 3 of us to have that night (I made enough chilli for 2-3 days for 3 adults, but the fries only for that night) I cut up about 3 large potatoes into traditional fry form. I then poured olive oil over them and seasoned them with that same pink Himalayan salt, pepper, oregano, and garlic salt. Put them into the oven that was preheated for 400 degrees; let them cook for 15 minutes then flip them, and back in for another 15 minutes. I did find that they stuck to the pan a little bit, so if you wish for that to not happen either flip them more often or add a little bit of olive oil onto the pan before adding the fries.
The lighting was not the greatest later in the night so please excuse that, but this is the finished product! Not the prettiest but super delicious. If you wish to eat the fries and chilli on their own you can, but I recommend you put the chilli on top of the fries because it truly transforms the whole experience! In the picture is a small salad plate and honestly my stomach was super satisfied after having that amount because the potatoes and chickpeas fill you up (and I have quite a large appetite).
If you try this and enjoy it please let me know, or if you add something that makes it tastier also let me know! I love mixing up recipes and trying new things so I would greatly appreciate it. However I did get a lot of praise that night so... I'm quite proud of it lol
Have a great weekend! And I will talk to you all next time.
Xoxo,
Callista