Chick-a-Peas

Last night, I found myself a little hungry.  I wasn't in the mood to cook a big meal.  Just wanted something to tide me over for the rest of the night.  So I looked in the fridge...found nothing.  Looked in the pantry...jack.  Looked in the cabinet...threw away a bunch of stale boxes of Triscuits, and some La Choy, Chow Mein noodles.  Moved around a bunch of cans of food I was tortured with by babysitters as a child (that's right...Cream of Mushroom Soup...great punishment for a kid).  Then I found a can of Chickpeas.  You know, chickpeas.  The heart and soul of hummus.  And I remembered seeing someone, somewhere, roast them until they became crunchy.  And if you know me, I have this thing about me where I love crunchy food.  Anything that threatens to break my teeth while eating it, count me in.  Must be part of my caveman instinct.  I never have claimed to be a girly, girl.  And so I decided to make this for dinner.* (Refer to warning at the bottom of this page).

So back to this recipe.  It's easy as hell.  Why do people say that?  Hell isn't supposed to be easy.  If it were, we'd all be trying our damndest to be damned to hell.  It's easy as pie.  Pie isn't easy either.  At least for this non-baker.  It's easy as sliced bread.  I once almost lost a finger slicing bread.  It's easy like Sunday morning.  Unless of course you raged like a rockstar on Saturday night, then Sunday morning can be VERY difficult.  It's easy as 1, 2, 3.  Yeah...even this mathematically challenged girl can do 1, 2, 3!!!  Here's the recipe:

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees
Open a can of chickpeas, and drain them (don't rinse them)
Dry off the chickpeas very well with a paper towel
Put the chickpeas on a baking pan with a rim, so you don't have a chickpea party in your oven
Pour about 1 tablespoon of olive oil over the chickpeas and rub them around to coat them
Add salt and pepper and cayenne
Rub the spices into the chickpeas and place them in the oven
Check them every 20 minutes and shake 'em around so they don't burn
Let them roast for about 40 minutes (make sure to check them frequently so they don't burn, because they can very easily do so).
Take them out of the oven when they are brown and crispy and let them rest for 5 minutes
Then...pop those suckers into your mouth.  They remind me a lot of those wasabi peas.

 *Warning ~ I do not suggest making this your entire dinner.  Use this recipe for snacking at a party.  These bad boys pack in 16% of your daily fiber intake.  I learned the hard way that eating an entire can of chickpeas may be one of the best colon cleansing foods around!!  Again, I never claimed to be a girly, girl!