Turmeric Broccoli and Chickpeas over Whole Wheat Couscous

This little gem of a recipe came out of not planning a meal for our Thursday night dinner.  On Thursday I realized that we had basically eaten everything green out of our refrigerator.  These items were the most substantial items we had in our fridge at the time: broccoli, chickpeas, two yukon potatoes, goat cheese, and whole wheat flour tortillas. When ingredients are limited, the creativity gets to kick in.

A couple weeks ago, I made Matt a dinner with broccoli and goat cheese mashed potatoes.  It was served alongside a meat item of some sort.  Since then he has been asking me to make those two dishes for him again.  That meant I got to check off Matt's Thursday dinner from the list.   He was getting two side dishes.  I also knew that we needed to use the chickpeas in the fridge because they had been there for 4, maybe 5, days at that point.  So that's when I pulled out the turmeric.  "Why turmeric?" you might say.  "Why not turmeric?" is how I would respond.  I am having a love affair with this spice right now.  It is so warm and earthy that it seems to just pull together a recipe of vegetables.  I thought I would take part of our remaining broccoli, add in some chickpeas, add some turmeric, and get myself a meal.  And that worked!

Although I only let Matt eat one bite of this dish (He had his goat cheese potatoes and broccoli. He was fine.), he said he would definitely eat it if I made it again.  That is definitely going to be happening.  It was so simple and easy to make this dinner.  We always have couscous or rice sitting around waiting to be used up.  This is also a quick and different way to use some broccoli and leftover chickpeas.  Although it was a gamble putting all these ingredients together, it turned out to a good one.  If you try it, I hope you enjoy!

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Turmeric Broccoli and Chickpeas

2 green onions
1 clove garlic
1 can chickpeas
2 cups broccoli, cut into bite sized pieces
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons turmeric
pinch of cayanne pepper
1/4 cup of water

Begin by chopping the green onions and the broccoli.  Heat a pan over medium heat that has a splash of olive oil in it.  Add onions.  Cook for about 3-5 minutes or until slightly soften. Add garlic and chickpeas.  Stir until well mixed and let sit for 1-2 minutes.  Add broccoli, salt, turmeric, cayanne pepper, and water.  Stir well.  Let cook until the water has evaporated off which should take about 5 minutes.  The broccoli should be bright green in color by the end of this process. Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve over couscous or rice.  Top with feta cheese or roasted nuts such walnuts, pine nuts, or almonds.

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