While searching for Super Bowl and Downton Abbey watch party snack recipes, I came across the James Beard Foundation's website, which I never had realized had so many fantastic recipes (thanks @beardfoundation on Twitter). I immediately "pinned" the Roasted Chickpeas recipe by Allison Tozzi Liu because of it's apparent ease and use of ingredients I almost always have in my cupboard (dried chickpeas, olive oil, smoked paprika, cayenne, cumin, and salt – yup, that's it!).
As I started to prepare the dish though, and began putting thought into how to prepare it simultaneously with the other dishes I was planning on making for the party, I began realizing how much work it was taking for a relatively simple snack. Not only did I need to cook the dried chickpeas, let them cool down and dry, but I also needed to stir the chickpeas every 10 minutes while they were taking up my oven from other dishes I wanted to bake. The chickpeas took about 50 minutes – 1 hour to roast in the oven (instead of the 40 minutes called for in the recipe).
The chickpeas were ultimately a fine party snack – light, crunchy, salty and healthy. But given the amount of work that went into preparing them, I think I'll probably not make this dish again.
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