Today's lunch was a magnificent move away from the cheese sandwiches of late. Leftovers did me proud having been crafted by my own fair hands the previous night.

I'll print the recipe as it was so good. Courtesy of the excellent river cafe cook book.

175g dried chickpeas soaked overnight
1 large garlic clove peeled
6 tablespoons olive oil
900g swiss chard leaves washed with large stems removed
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 medium red onion peeled and coarsely chopped
2 medium carrots peeled and cut into small pieces
2 dried chillies crumbled
250ml white wine
2 tablespoons tomato sauce (this was two hour home made tomato sauce I rustled up in the afternoon for use in the final dish)
3 handfuls flat leaf parsley
2 tablespoons lemon juice
extra virgin olive oil

Soak the chickpeas in a generous amount of water overnight with the bicarbonate of soda.
Drain the chickpeas and place in a saucepan with water to cover add the garlic and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil.
Bring to the boil then simmer for 45 minutes or until tender.
Keen in their liquid until ready to use.
Blanch the chard and chop coarsely.
Heat the remaining olive oil in a large pan over medium heat add the onion and carrot and cook slowly for 15 minutes or until the carrots are tender.
Season with salt pepper and the chilli.
Pour in the wine and reduce almost completely.
Add the tomato sauce and reduce until very thick.
Add the chard and chickpeas and mix.
Season and cook for lo minutes.
Chop two thirds of the parsley leaves and add to the mixture with the lemon juice.
Serve sprinkled with the whole parsley leaves and a little extra virgin olive oil.

What I did to change this up was to mash half of the chickpeas with olive oil, lemon salt and pepper thus creating a more saucy consistency. The resulting dish was then stirred rather unsuccessfully through linguine before being scattered with the remaining parsley. Delicious last night and delicious again for lunch today.

Douglino