Pasta meals are easy, quick & easily adaptable the way we want & with whatever we have at hand. Pasta, esp. spaghetti please my kids very easily & have become a thing to turn to quite often during the weeknights. I never buy store bought pasta sauce. It might take me extra 10 -15 minutes to make the sauce at home, but it is really worth it. The best thing about pasta is that they can be the delish all inclusive one pot meals, which means I do not have to cook anything else, other than may be a side salad.

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Chickpeas in Light Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:

1. 2 cans of garbanzo beans- about 16 oz cans (1 cup uncooked chickpeas, if you want to soak and pressure cook it)
2. 1 tablespoon Ghee (can be substituted with butter or any cooking oil)
3. 2 teaspoons of grated fresh ginger
4. 1 clove of garlic chopped very fine
5. 1 cardamom
6. 1 clove
7. 1 half inch stick of cinnamon
8. 1 teaspoons Cumin seeds (Jeera)
9. 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro/coriander leaves
10. 2 Serrano peppers chopped (Optional- add this if you want it spicy)
11. Salt to taste
12. ½ teaspoons of turmeric
13. 1 cup of V8 or tomato puree with water added to it to make it as the same consistency of V8
14. 1 teaspoon of roasted ground cumin seeds

Preparation:

In the V8 add the turmeric, salt, and the roasted cumin and stir it to mix.

Dry roast the cardamom, clove and cinnamon in the utensil you are going to prepare this.

You will smell the aroma of these spices once they start roasting.

Add the ghee and add the cumin seeds.

Add the chopped peppers if you want it spicy. Once the cumin seeds start turning dark add the garlic and the ginger.Fry for a couple of minutes.

Add the V8/Tomato Puree mix and let it boil for 5 minutes.

Add the Chickpeas and the Cilantro leaves.

Boil for 7 – 10 minutes and mash up a few chickpeas with the back of the spoon. This should be like a soup, not dry. So if the water dries up add more water when you are boiling.

This can be accompanied with hot white rice, or Roti or can be had by itself like a soup!!