Cooking Lesson

I learned a lesson yesterday.

I'm actually a bit nervous when it comes to cooking an "exotic" recipe. If it has the name of a Middle Eastern, Asian, or African country or nationality in the title of the recipe I'll usually avoid it for fear of screwing it up royally and having it taste terrible. I know people who can make Indian or Chinese food on the fly, and I've always thought that was such a cool thing to be able to do. There are some things that I can make on the fly and I can be a bit creative sometimes, but when it comes to non-American fare I get cold feet.


A couple of weeks ago, I bought a can of chickpeas (or Ceci, or Garbanzo Beans... whatever you prefer to call them) because I like chickpeas and wanted to keep them on hand. The thing is, I have no general idea what to do with chickpeas besides put them in my chili or process them into hummus. Last night I got up some bravery and made Moroccan Spiced Chickpea Soup (incidentally I had to buy 2 more cans of chickpeas to make it) from a recipe I found on the Food Network website. It was so freakin' good. I got rave reviews from Steve and was advised strongly that this should be a repeated recipe.

Lesson learned: Quit being a chickenpants when it comes to cooking new things. Worst case scenario is that it's gross and you make a PBJ.