Monday was humphy day. Humph! Here is what you make a person when the person is all humphy and does not want anything they can think of but still wants to eat and needs food badly in order to get out of their humphy mood and into a good mood.

This situation generally calls for curry at our house: lazy curry of the "throw everything in the pot with spices and make it be delicious right now for eatings" variety. I made one and it was delicious.

Lazy chickpea tomato curry

garlic
half an onion
olive oil
ginger
coriander
cumin
cayenne
cooked chickpeas
tomato puree
grain for serving

Start cooking your grain first, so it'll be ready later.

Smash and peel six or so cloves of garlic; peel half an onion. Chop them up and soften in olive oil. If you have fresh ginger, peel and finely mince a knob of it and toss it in as well. Otherwise, add several shakes of powdered ginger, plus coriander, cumin, and a little cayenne. If you can find your turmeric, you can add some of that too, but my turmeric had fled to the very farthest corners of the spice cabinet, and so I had none. Boo!

When the garlic and onion are soft and golden, add about two cups of cooked chickpeas. Mine were frozen into a big block, which was fine. I just broke everything up with a spoon as it softened. If things are starting to stick, add a few splashes of water as well. Then add in half a can of tomato puree, or any equivalent amount of any textured tomatoes. If you use fresh chopped tomatoes, you may need to cook a while longer to break them down; in that case, I'd do the tomato before the chickpeas. Stir everything together, add a pinch of salt and a little pepper, and cook another five or ten minutes, until everything is warm and done.

Eat with whatever grain you have in the cabinet. I made millet and quinoa mix, since the millet and quinoa are still mixed up in the same jar. It was fine and fine: this way the millet is fluffy and the quinoa is a little crunchy and everything sets into a big tasty mass. Also this way you don't have to rinse the quinoa, or at least I don't think you do, since I can't taste any of the advertised bitterness.

I'm going to have to make a pan of plain unrinsed quinoa sometime soon, to test and see if I can tell the difference from rinsed. If only I had two rice cookers: we could make it ridiculous quinoa cookoff extravaganza! Then I could invite everyone I know over with food that would be good served over quinoa. Actually, this sounds like a really good idea now that I'm thinking of it. Grain-oriented potluck!