Festive Chickpea Tart

right before going into the oven
Chickpea pie. Doesn't conjure up imaginations of delightful indulgence does it? Surprisingly enough, this unnatural combination of words didn't stop me from trying out Dreena Burton's (a fellow Canadian I'll have you know!) very recently posted recipe for Festive Chickpea Tart. Boy Canada sure has it's fair share of fabulous cooks and cookbook authors! Her book, Eat, Drink & Be Vegan, is on my wish list, the short one.

it's impressive enough in it's uncooked state!
Back to the pie slash tart. I made it on Saturday night for supper, and served it with a salad. I'll admit that I spent the first few moments of the meal focusing on my salad. I was stalling. Believe me, the pie looked gorgeous. I had high hopes and was afraid to find out the truth. Curiosity eventually got the best of me. With fork held in guarded trepidation, and a muttering of "well, here we go", I moved to serve up my first morsel.

My salad soon became a wisp of a memory.

Each bite tasted better than the last, and in the end I knew I was hook-line-and-sinker in love. Why? It's the epitome of comfort food without the fuzzy bunny slippers. It says gourmet and good old fashioned home cooking all at the same time.

Here is the official description of the Festive Chickpea Tart:

Move over faux turkeys! This savory tart takes center plate with its combination of chickpeas, crunchy walnuts, spinach, and seasonings nestled together. This dish is elegant enough to serve for holiday gatherings, but also easy enough to make for a family dinner any time of the year.

On Dreena's Vegan Recipes blog, she suggests serving it with cranberry sauce. Oh how I wish we had had some, it would have made it even more scrumptious. Or gravy. Mmmmm.

click on the photo, you must get a closer look! yum!
(yes I have old blue kitchen counters. weep for me.)
This is most definitely going to make an appearance on our dinner table come Christmas Day!!

I was trying to photograph the pie when Jon
decided to contribute his opinion to this blog. Cute.
In the next few days I will blog about the vegan pie crust recipe I used. It's the best one I've used by far, though for any nutritarians visiting, it's not Eat to Live compliant. It would fall into the "eat rarely" section of the nutritarian pyramid!