Chickpeas - how to cook?

Hi!

In transition here.  Gave up all meat but poultry and seafood 3 months ago.  Read Skinny Bitch and decided I could live without dairy, cheese, caffeine, and all landanimals.  Still on the fence about seafood.  Eating seafood sure opens up options at restaurants.  So.....guess I'm pescatarian, going on week 4. 

 Anyway, I LOVE chickpeas.  I eat probably 2 or 3 cans a week.  Since I prefer organic, it gets a bit pricey. 

How do I make beans from scratch?  How long do they last in the fridge?  Can they be frozen?  And can I use my crockpot?

i just boil them for two hours, comes out nice. it's not really difficult to cook... idk, if they can stay frozen never tried it...

I cook them in stew type things: fry onion and garlic, loads of veg, tinned tomatoes and chick peas. Home made humous is good too :)

soak them overnight (or for 8-12 hours). Use plenty of water.  drain the water and replace with fresh cold water.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmer with a lid part way on (so that steam can escape).  Simmer for 1.5 hours.  Drain and you are good to go.  They will keep in your fridge for a week or so.  I would think you could freeze them, but they might not taste as good.  Cooked dried beans taste much better than canned IMO. 

If you like chickpeas you should try chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon - so good.  I think you can actually google the recipe.

Thanks!

I gave Veganomicon to a friend for a gift over the holidays.  I'll see if I can get the cutlet recipe from her.

My brother puts chickpeas to soak on the weekend, then just leaves them until he's ready to use them during the week, and they cook up quite fast. They come out the same as the ones I soak and cook right away. I don't know if this works with other beans, but it works for him with chickpeas.

I love chickpeas too.  I pressure cook them, which I think is the most delicious way to cook them.  It only takes 12 minutes at high pressure, and then I use natural pressure release.  Its much faster to pressure cook beans than to use any other method.

I'm having an enormous salad for lunch tomorrow which a cup of chickpes in it.  Its already made and sitting in the refrigerator, ready for me to take to work.

 

frozen?  ugh.    well, like chickpeas are readily available in all areas.. dried or in the produce section.

you can do all that..  you can bake them and they'll be chewy.. i love chewy chick peas... i also steam them with artichokes, tomatoes and asparagus.   yum yum!  oh man.. i want some now!

argh!  

salads to work is the best thing anyone can do during the day.

i love to mash up chick peas.. still warm and soft...  mix it with avocado with some thinly sliced celery and carrots.. spread it on bread..   eat it like a sammich...   :D

if you want and have a bbq.    chick peas with tomatoes...  sliced oranges,  apples, lemon...  (squeezed)  sliced apricot,  sliced.....  tangerine...  grapes...  some curry...   peppers...  (i could go on..)  mix it all up together.. and toss into a pan that can take alot of heat.. toss it on the bbq... put a lid on it.. check and stir every so often...   keep stirring and checking until the batch starts getting gooey...   you can also add lima beans.. kidney beans....  it's a great veggie bbq.   (onions too.. don't forget that... but you'll suit yourself to taste on what you want.. i think you get the idea)  it's great tasting and well.. great for the old regularity!

Steaming sounds yummy.  How long?  Do you still soak them the night before?

 

Thanks, everyone, for the wonderful ideas.  The sammwhich sounds good, and I'm going to try baking some as well.

Oh yeah I forgot about baking them, such a good snack! Use cooked ones (obvious I think, but I don't want you to end up with black lumps instead of delicious browned chickpeas) and I like to sprinkle some herbs on them before they go in the oven, even just some Lawrey's salt or whatever that stuff is called.

Do you just store the baked peas in an airtight container?  Will they last at room temperature or do they also need to be refrigerated?

 

I soak them overnight and cook them in my crockpot on low for 10 hours.  Then I drain them, portion them out and freeze.  They come out just fine, much better than canned.  I've been doing this for years and do a different bean every couple of weeks so I always have a variety in the freezer.

You can roast cooked chickpeas.  I'll try to find the directions for you - they were on the Recipes forum.

edited to add:  Roasted Chickpeas Recipe

They come out like crunchy nuts and you can store them as you would nuts.

THANKS!!!!

Love love love chickpeas as well. I make falafel balls out of them (which I toast instead of fry, for less calories) and eat them with crackers/pita bread, tomatoes, and garlic sauce. Yum!! There are good recipes at Recipezaar.com and Allrecipes.com. I usually keep what's left over (I use ones from the can--we have no non-canned chickpeas where I live), and they last in&n bsp;the fridge without getting freezer burnt for a week or so. Which reminds  me..I'm making more fala fels tonight! 

I just read that the purpose of soaking beans is to rid them of the sugars that are hard for humans to digest.  Soaking them overnight rids the beans of 20% of those sugars but doing a quick soak rids them of 90% of those sugars.

To quick soak beans (any beans) rinse 2 cups of dry beans very well.  Then put those 2 cups of beans in 8 cups of water and put it over high heat.  When the water comes to a boil, remove the pan from the heat, cover, and let sit for 1 to 4 hours.

Then cook as normal. 

I take chick peas. mash them up with a fork.... and treat them like you would chicken salad.. with mayo, onion, relish, salt, pepper.. eat it in a sandwich.. mock chicken salad.. my husband didn't even realize it was chick peas...