Tomato, Capsicum & Chickpea Pasta
This pasta is the king of mid-week meals. You can cook it with one eye open. In fact, you barely even need to be conscious while making it. Like, if you’d had a really bad Wednesday you could probably be half-way through a bottle of wine, or be self-medicating by watching Friends non-stop while cooking this pasta, and it’ll still be just fine. Lazy lazy autopilot pasta.
I got the recipe from my Mum (tweaked ever-so-slightly) and the magical thing is if you’ve heard the recipe once you can’t really forget the essentials because you only have to remember that you need one of everything: One red onion, one can of chickpeas, one can of tomatoes, one clove of garlic, one red capsicum - how good is that. Everything else is just extra flavouring on top (oh, and you’ll need pasta of course, but who ever needs to be told to remember pasta)!
Tomato, Capsicum & Chickpea Pasta
Serves 2-3
Ingredients
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, sliced into chunky wedges
1 clove of garlic, diced
1 red capsicum, sliced into long strips
1 x 400g can chickpeas (but don’t drain them!)
1 x 400g can whole peeled tomatoes
Plus these optional extras for added flavour (2 bay leaves, 1 fresh chilli, salt and pepper to taste)
150g of dry pasta (I like penne or curly pasta, but you can use anything you like)
Method
Put your olive oil and red onion in a frying pan. Fry on low to moderate heat until the onion has softened, become translucent and browned on the edges.
Add the garlic and red capsicum. Continue to cook, stirring every few minutes, until the capsicum has softened.
Add the entire can of chickpeas (don’t drain it), the can of tomatoes, bay leaves, chilli and a little salt and black pepper.
Continue to cook the sauce, stirring every few minutes until it has reduced and is no longer runny. While the sauce is reducing, cook your pasta according to the instructions on the packet.
Voila! Once your pasta is cooked you can dish it up into three equal portions with a hearty dollop of sauce on top of each
Note: This dish is 100% vegan, but if you’re vegetarian and you like your cheese, it does go very well with a nice sharp parmesan on top. For an extra-healthy option serve alongside a fresh garden salad (I like rocket, avocado and broccoli with a lemony vinaigrette). You could also try using whole wheat pasta.