Guilt-Free Snack: Roasted Chickpeas and Zucchini

The other night I was hankering for a snack. The kind you can just mindlessly chomp on while you read or watch TV. I didn’t have much on hand, but I did have 2 cans of chickpeas (garbanzo beans) and a random, lonely zucchini. So I decided to roast them.

I have seen other recipes for roasted chickpeas as a snack but they all use spices I can’t eat, so I threw this together and it was delicious enough that I thought I’d pass it on to you. Enjoy!

 Roasted Chickpeas & Zucchini

Ingredients: 1 can chickpeas drained, 1 medium zucchini chopped, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp dried rosemary

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

Make sure chickpeas are as dry as possible by pressing them with paper towels

In a bowl, toss chickpeas, zucchini, and olive oil

Spread mix on a baking sheet in a single layer

Roast for 35 minutes, shaking the pan once or twice to mix the chickpeas and zucchini. Roast longer if chickpeas are not crunchy enough.

Let cool for 5 minutes.

Sprinkle salt and rosemary over chickpeas and zucchini. Stir with spatula to coat.

My husband Stewart looked at this bowl of chickpeas and zucchini pieces quizzically. “You’re gonna eat that?” he asked. He thought the addition of zucchini was weird. Well, I was going to eat it alone, but the next thing I knew, he had eaten at least half of it. The zucchini was a nice counterpoint to the nuttiness of the garbanzo beans. Lesson learned. Don’t question Mama’s cooking.