Day Twenty-Six: Claire Robinson has a Magical Oven

I, however, do not.

So these "crunchy" spiced garbanzo beans were inspired by this recipe from 5 Ingredient Fix on Food Network.

I was pretty stoked about this recipe. I was thinking, "this would be a fantastic snack to package up and take camping, and wrap in pretty packages and give people as part of gift baskets, and to serve at parties... and and and..."

I messed around with the spices a little, but I stuck with the measurements from the recipe for what I added. I am a chili powder freak, so I have at least four or five different kinds in my cupboard. So, along with the Spanish paprika and cumin (and salt), I added both ancho and chipotle chili powder.

I read the reviews of this recipe on the Food Network website, and almost all of them said that the chickpeas did NOT get crunchy at 35 minutes. When I checked them at 40 minutes, they were still not crunchy.



I left them in for another 15 minutes... still not crunchy, but they tasted so good, and they were LESS mushy than they were when I started so I went ahead and pulled them.



And then, just because I was curious, I went ahead and made a larger batch for the oven.

35 minutes... no crunch.

45 minutes... no crunch.

55 minutes... burn. *sigh*



the ones in the middle that didn't turn black ARE crunch, and don't taste bad at all, but I wouldn't share them with friends. Maybe my neighbors. I like them much less.

I thought maybe the ones that turned black did so because of all the chili powders. Nope. They really were burnt.

You know that scene in "Dumb and Dumber" when Jim Carrey spits out the h'ordeurve?

I did that. A lot. And then I rinsed my mouth out with water. And then I had a minor moment of panic when I imagined that mouthful of burned chickpeas being tiny little nuggets of carcinogens.

But I got over it.

I'll also mention a strange phenomenon that occurs when you bake chickpeas. They pop. Sometimes, they pop out of the pan. I'm pretty sure that before I use the big oven again, I'll have to climb in there and clean up the rogue chickpeas.

I'm very disappointed this didn't work out like Claire promised. However, the version I made in the Easy Bake, crunchy or not, are quite delicious. I think if I can settle for less than crunchy chickpeas, I may actually make this as a snack again. To bring to work. Maybe not to share. It just loses something when you have to tell people you're giving them "Supposed to be Crunchy baked chickpeas," I think.

I'm not giving up on good ole Claire, though. On the same show, she made a baked ricotta recipe that I want to monkey around with. I bought some ricotta tonight, so perhaps tomorrow we'll give her a chance to redeem herself.

But for tonight, I think it's time to unplug the EBO and imagine a world where chickpeas really DO get crunchy in 35 minutes.

But I'm not bitter.