Pasta e Ceci (Pasta with Chickpeas)

I’m not quite sure if this one’s a soup or a pasta dish. All I know is that it made for a very delicious and satisfying meal. It’s great on a cold (or any other) day and works for lunch or dinner.
I found the recipe here and came up with this after tweaking the original a bit.

Ingredients:
(For approximately 3 servings)
¾ cup of any kind of small pasta (I used pipette), cooked till almost al dente

1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
½ can of stewed tomatoes (the one I used had small amounts of onion, celery & green pepper too)
2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
½ onion, finely chopped
¾ tsp dried rosemary
Red pepper flakes
Pepper
Salt
Olive oil
1-2 cups water (I used the pasta water)

Method:
Heat olive oil in a large saucepan. Add chopped onion and crushed garlic followed by salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and crushed rosemary. Cook until the onions turn soft and translucent.

Add the canned tomatoes, breaking up the large pieces with the back of a big spoon.

Add half the chickpeas. Cook for a few minutes. Blend everything in the saucepan together. Add some water if it's too thick. I used my handheld immersion blender here but a regular blender is fine too- it's just that it's a pain to have to wait for the whole thing to cool a bit, then transfer to the blender and then back again to the saucepan.

Simmer, stirring occasionally. The pureed chickpeas give the soup a very thick and creamy texture. Add the remaining chickpeas. Cook for a few minutes. Adjust salt and pepper as required.

Add the cooked pasta and cook for a minute or two for all the flavors to come together. The longer the soup sits, the thicker it gets. Serve hot.

I’m sending this across to Vaishali for It’s A Vegan World: Italian.

This also goes to Susan for the eighth edition of My Legume Love Affair.

Buon appetito!