Chickpea Picatta

It's after Christmas, everyone is a little skint and trying to lose that extra few pounds they gained over the festive period.

So last weekend when I arranged to meet up with a friend, instead of spending money on a meal out I decided to cook. This happily gave me the opportunity to try my new cook book-  Isa Chandra Mosowitz's Appetite for Reduction and having seen positive reviews, I decided to have a go at her Chickpea Picatta.

The recipe itself is pretty easy to follow, takes 30 minutes and is only 190 calories per serving.  In case your wondering arugula is 'salad rocket' according to wiki, however as I would have no other use for rocket, apart from this recipe, I subbed in baby leaf spinach and as I had no dried thyme I used some mixed dry herbs  (which gets used in any occasion that I find myself without any type of dried herb!). Isa also suggests serving with caulipots, which are mashed cauliflower and potato.  I decided this was too much effort and opted to serve mine with penne pasta.

The picture below is actually of the leftovers I had for lunch the next day, as I was too busy nattering to take a photo the first time! The only difference was that the first time I remembered to follow Isa's suggestion and put the spinach at the bottom of the bowl, then layer with the cooked pasta and chickpea picatta which wilts the spinach without having to cook it (clever!) however I reckon this looks more artistic :-)

The overall dish was lovely, the sauce was thick and almost creamy, but the addition of the lemon made it a refreshing dish. The only change I would make is to serve it with conchiglie pasta, so that you could easily get a mouthful of pasta, sauce and chickpeas, which was quite difficult with the penne! I could see why Isa recommends serving this with caulipots or mashed potato, as the potatoes would soak up some of the delicious sauce whilst allowing a good forkful of chickpeas and spinach.

I will be submitting this post to Book Marked Recipes on Tinned Tomatoes.