Curried Chickpeas and Squash
july 9, 2013

I love Indian food and I love to come home to dinner bubbling away in the crockpot, so that I can pull off a homemade meal quickly after work, school, camp, baseball, soccer or whatever else comes between me and the stove. 

I also prefer to cook dried beans instead of using canned. Cans are more expensive, usually have salt and other additives and almost always include the toxic chemical bisphenol A, which you can read about here on EWG . 

So this dinner is a big win for me. It cooks in two parts, though, so if I can't stop home an hour or two before we eat I'll make it the day before.

The chickpea recipe is on p 17 of Lynn Alley's book, The Gourmet Vegetarian Slow Cooker. 

For the squash: cut it into thin quarter or half rounds, saté with a bit of butter and curry powder, then add a little water and put a lid on to steam until it is as soft as you like. Serve over basmati rice, which takes 20 minutes to make in a pot or can be made the day before.

Chopped green onions (or green tops of fresh round onions), cilantro and basil add some summer herbiness when sprinkled on top.

--- After dinner follow-up:

The grownups in our house just mixed all three courses (chickpeas, squash, rice) in one bowl while the kids were more persnickety and ate each in a separate, clean bowl: a taxing affair for the dishwasher, which is now complaining of drainage problems.

Both my kids love dal made of chopped chickpeas, called chana dal. So once my son finally agreed to take a bite of what is essentially a new (to him) style of dal, he gobbled it down. My daughter, as usual, ate it all up with no complaints. My husband loved it and so did I. It's a decent way to use up any greens or green veggies, (like squash) and get some protein without meat.