Recipe: Chickpea Casserole

Happy Meatless Monday!

For a while now I'd been looking for a great chickpea recipe, other than our token chickpea curry and falafel that we make in this house, so I was thrilled when I stumbled upon this recipe. I wasn't too keen on the idea of so much lemon that they used in the original recipe, and I felt some serious veggies needed to be added, so I made a few modifications.

2 - 19 oz cans of chickpeas, drained
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 large eggs, beaten
1 cup cottage cheese, ideally the small curd variety of cottage cheese
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided
1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley (I used dried)
2 stalks fresh rosemary (leaves only) (I used dried - and only a tbsp)
2/3 cup dried bread crumbs
Olive or canola oil
**1/4-1/2 cup milk - see note below

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F and lightly grease a 9x13-inch or other 3-quart baking dish with oil.

2. In a large bowl, mix the chickpeas with the onion, garlic, and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Mix the beaten eggs in a medium bowl with the cottage cheese, yogurt, and 1/2 cup of the Parmesan cheese. Finely mince the parsley and fresh rosemary leaves. Stir the cottage cheese mixture and herbs into the chickpea mixture.

4. Spread the mixture in the prepared baking dish and top with the remaining 1/2 cup Parmesan and the bread crumbs. (At this point the casserole can be covered and refrigerated for up to 24 hours.) Drizzle with oil. Cover the casserole and bake for 45 minutes (uncover for the last 10-15 minutes), or until bubbling and golden. I also set it to broil for 5 minutes to let the top turn a nice golden brown.

Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

**I really enjoyed this recipe - it's healthy, very filling, and a very high protein vegetarian meal. My one word of advice would be to add about 1/4-1/2 cup of milk to the mixture - the recipe comes out just a teensy bit dry and I think this would help.

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